The integrality of the right to health in the view of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court

Abstract

The 1988 Constitution innovated the Brazilian legal framework establishing the right to health as a right of all the people and a duty of the State, providing of an objective and subjective universality. But is it possible the immediate realization of this universality? While the Constitution provides the double strand of universality, it restricts this universality through two other objectives of social security, selectivity and distributivity. Moreover, the very juridical regime of social rights establishes that its implementation should be done gradually and with the application of the maximum available resources. Therefore, the analysis of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court jurisprudence is fundamental for an interpretation that allows understanding the concept of integrality of the right to health.