SUS funding in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic

The Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS), since its creation in 1988, has ahistory of insufficient resources to effectively guarantee universality and comprehensivecare. Its underfunding, derived from the lack of support from part of society and neoliberalpolicies undertaken by various governments in the 1990s and 2000s, turned into effectivereduction in real terms of funding resources after the approval of the “expenditure ceiling”in 2016, aggravating the structural system difficulty. The Covid-19 pandemic generateda preeminent need to expand the service capacity of the public health system and, withthat, the resources for the SUS were expanded. However, this greater financial availabilitywas the result of extraordinary measures and was restricted to the years 2020 and 2021. The ordinary budget for health in those years and the 2022 LOA demonstrate that theunderfunding continues and that the pandemic did not change the lack of priority given tohealthcare within the federal budget. JEL Classification: I18.