This technical paper estimates the deductions on tax credits in Brazil for health care during 2003 and 2006. Subsidies for private health insurance are the focus of this study. It seems to be a contradiction between the redistribution model in the Constitution and the level of public spending on...

This work is a compilation of studies produced at the Social Studies Department - Disoc/Ipea to support the elaboration of the document "Brazil: the state of the Union - 2007". Health outcomes in the last decades, health policies after 1988 and the role of the government in health care are...

We evaluate the efficiency of expenditure in health care provision by comparing various output measures (life expectancy; infant survival rate; years of life recovered from diseases; population; area) from the health system of Brazilian and OECD countries with an expenditure measure (health...

In 1988 Brazil was one of the first Latin American countries to frame access to health care as a constitutional right, but, in fact, it has not produced coverage of its citizens. Brazil's Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde, or SUS in Portuguese) cannot quite be described as a public...

Using data from the Brazilian Census 2000 we estimate whether the distribution of the eligible population of the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC) would change after a modification in definition of family used to calculate family per capita income. Our results show that in 2000 the majority of...

We estimate the distributions of the eligible public, benefits and coverage levels of the Brazilian Continuous Cash Benefit Program (BPC) using survey data from the 2000 Census and the 2006 National Household Survey. The estimates show that the eligible population is uniformly distributed along...

This work develops a framework able to guide investment in hospital capacities within the realm of a complex health system. The study is performed from the standpoint of the economic surplus of public hospitals. Although the paper is inspired by the Brazilian National Health System, it can be...

Different conceptions about distribution criteria in health services are discussed based on the notion of fairness, and in the assumption that health requirements are simultaneously social security needs. Issues of equity and limits in distribution of health services are highlighted as they are...