Previne Brasil, the Agency for the Development of Primary Healthcare, and the Services Portfolio: radicalization of privatization policy in basic healthcare?

Abstract:

The essay analyzes documents produced by the Brazilian Ministry of Health in 2019 and 2020 for the reorganization of basic healthcare: the new financing policy (Previne Brasil), the Agency for the Development of Primary Healthcare (Law n. 13,958), the Services Portfolio, and complementary provisions. The objective was to understand how the projected changes in management roles and the healthcare model contribute to strengthening the public policy’s mercantile logic. As parameters for the analysis, we used the management responsibilities and the principles and guidelines of the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS) and basic healthcare oriented according to the social determination of the health-disease process, the expanded definition of health, territorially organized care, community focus, and coordination of care in an integrated network. Changes in the allocation of public resources, the establishment of new possibilities for relations between the State and private companies, and adjustment of the healthcare model to market management characteristics reveal the privatizing orientation of these measures. The policy assumes an individualizing focus in the model of care and financing, undercutting the territorial perspective, community work, and comprehensive and multidisciplinary care. This accelerates the reconfiguration of the SUS as a system in which public or private agents can participate indistinguishably, exacerbating the break with the constitutional commitment to health as a duty of the State.

Keywords:
Health Management; Heath Policy; Family Health Strategy; Unified Health System; Primary Health Care