Universalizing Health Care in Brazil: Opportunities and Challenges

This chapter explains the development of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) within a hybrid development policy regime of neoliberal and new developmentalist policies. Focusing on three key dimensions for the development of health care in the Brazilian federative context— namely the regionalization of health care, stable and sufficient financing and public–private partnership—the chapter highlights the opportunities and challenges in moving towards universal health coverage in a context of great regional inequality, chronic underfunding and complicated relations between the public and private sectors. It argues that the creation and development of the SUS was a key driver towards the universalization of health coverage, and opened a window of opportunity to create a virtuous complementarity between health care expansion and other policies for overall development.