Discussing one Methodology to the Equitable Allocation of Federal Resources to the National Health System

Abstract

This article deals with the application of an equitable allocation methodology concerning the federal resources of Brazil's National Health System (SUS) to the states and municipalities, for Primary Health Care and also Medium and High Complexity procedures. Few actions in the field of health financing have been developed in Brazil, in order to comply with the legal requirements of universal and equitable health. What usually happens is the prevalence of the historical behavior of resource allocation based on health production and not on health necessities. The proposed methodology follows the approach of Porto et al (2001), using the technique of principal component analysis, with some adjustments and changes in the definition of the reference scale, mainly for medium and high complexity procedures. Based on this methodology, the work presents the distribution proposed to SUS federal resources in 2005, establishing comparisons between the found values and the present ones, for both kinds of procedures. In the case of Primary Health Care procedures, the proposed methodology includes all Brazilian municipalities, consolidated to a state level. On the other hand, for Medium and High Complexity procedures it was developed only for the state level.