The coalition of health entrepreneurs and their proposals for the reform of the Brazilian health system: Political and programmatic setbacks (2014-2018)

Abstract

With the aim of systematizing the health private sector proposals related with the reformulation of the Brazilian health system, as well as contributing to the understanding of its meaning, an essay was carried out, based in documents from the Health Coalition Institute (ICOS) published in the period from 2014 to 2018. The document content analysis was carried out guided by some concepts of Bourdieu, Coutinho and Labra. With the change in the correlation of forces resulting from the 2016 parliamentary coup, the private health sector’s proposals gained visibility, which initially seemed to correspond to an update of its historical agenda, but which are progressively changing to suit the new political and economic scenario. From then on, conditions of possibility were created for the protagonism of these entrepreneurs in the field of power in relation to sectoral reform and the formulation of health policies, with consequences related to the disruption of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS). The contradictions between the discourse of defense of SUS by the entrepreneurs, and the privatizing concrete proposals may reveal a search for the symbolic profits associated with the defense of the public interests and of the universal.