Social Security and SUS: re-visiting the theme

Abstract

This is a revisit to an article published in the first issue of Saúde e Sociedade, in 1992, done by the author himself. The original article is still up to date, thirteen years after its publication. In the text there is a discussion on the most common arguments in favor and contrary to the ties of SUS (Health System) to the budget and on the main aspects of CPMF (Contribution over Financial Movements), approved to increase financial resources of SUS and the EC (Constitution Amendment) n. 29. The article also discusses recent legal and constitutional changes in tributary and security areas. The conclusion points out that hardly there will be in Brazil an universal health system able to offer integral attention with quality, as in the countries with consolidated welfare state, while social groups with stronger power solve their health services problems out of this system. However it recognizes important advances of SUS that, in spite of its problems, has been kept out of the international sanitary reforms of liberal viewpoint.