Various government coalitions encounter limits when attempting to implement policy changes. The study aimed to describe the policy orientation of party coalitions, budget outlay, and the structure and performance of medical and dental care in two health regions of Brazil with different socioeconomic conditions and supplies of services. The indicators used were based on official data from 2007 and 2014 and characteristics of the party coalition defined by municipal electoral preferences and the intensity of electoral competition in each state of the respective major geographic region. Higher per capita budget outlay and higher percentage of the population potentially covered by primary care and by the oral health teams under the Family Health Strategy were related to the regional hub municipality with a more left-leaning party coalition, while the regional hub municipality with the more right-leaning party coalition showed an important increase in the percentage of the population potentially covered by physicians. The effectiveness improved in both hub municipalities. The findings confirmed the notion that more left-leaning coalitions tend to earmark more budget resources for social policies but encounter limits for overcoming structural inequalities and for converting their platform preferences into actual policies.
Keywords:
Health Systems; Dental Care; Medical Assistance; Political Factors