Health legislation: a study on legislative bill initiatives in the Brazilian state of Acre

Abstract

This article analyzes the actions of the Executive and Legislative Powers of the Brazilian state of Acre in terms of the formulation of health proposals that have been implemented since 1999. Two legislatures are compared. It begins with the principle that the Executive Branch possesses significant agenda-setting power. This power allows this branch to define essential topics to be raised by the Legislative and also to define the steps and the sequence of procedures to be followed in the decision-making process. This descriptive study was performed using publicly available documents from the Acre State Legislative Assembly in Brazil. The bills approved by the Assembly were identified and then organized by author as per their processing time and topic. The political-institutional context was also considered. Out of the 93 topics authored by the Legislative and approved between 1999 and 2002, 20.4% involved health ‒ particularly medications, vaccines, medical supplies, and healthcare products. During the next period (2003–2006), 6.8% of the 294 proposals that were approved involved health ‒ particularly policies, plans, programs, and projects. The study suggests that there was a change in the nature of the projects approved by the Legislative between the periods analyzed. In the second legislature, lawmakers gave preference to a light agenda to prioritize honorific and symbolic issues.