Abstract
The guarantee of the right to health in Brazil has been widely discussed in recent years; however, this is an old debate, to which this article seeks to contribute. This study aims to show the contributions of the sociologist Amélia Cohn regarding the Brazilian Sanitary Reform (BSR), to discuss how current are her questions and reflect on the relationship between health and democracy. Cohn`s theses on BSR are discussed based on her texts, published between 1989 and 2013. Based on the idea of “decline on the field of BSR,” we sought to systematize the set of her critical thinking in the different historical periods. Note that, already in 1992, the author affirmed the exhaustion of the BSR. In the context of the implementation of Brazilian National Health System (SUS) in the 1990s, the author pointed out the need to develop a new health project for the country. In the following decade, Cohn’s recognized the loss of protagonism in the health field due to the depoliticization of the BSR in the implantation process of SUS, which weakened the distinction between the new forms of capital accumulation - the incorporation of market rationality in the production and supply of services - and the guarantee of the right to health.
Keywords:
Amélia Cohn; Sanitary Reform; Right to Health; Social Thought and Health; Social Sciences and Health