What can the Unified Health System do in times of neoliberal necropolitics?

Abstract

In the redemocratization in Brazil, “we, the people” committed to citizenship that led to the promulgation of the 1988 Federal Constitution. “Citizenship Constitution” mirrored the synergy between health workers and the population’s needs, granting health as a right directly related to the notions of universality, integrality and equity. We’ve been struggling with severe attacks of capital against the ethical-political agenda that founds the Sistema Único de Saúde-SUS and the stigmatized perception that a part of society has of it. With the attempt of the neoliberal necropolitical rationality to become the theoretical corpus of society and State, we’ve been witnessing the increase of precarity through the dismantling of social security and to minorities policies. The impact on the SUS became through decrease in financing and allocation of resources to actions against the autonomy.  Considering these attacks against SUS and the role of the State itself, we ask: how to resist? Our bet is: return the conversation among “we, the people” in order to built a radical movement towards “a life possible to be lived” for everyone. SUS has and will play a strategic role, as it continues to be recognized as fundamental in guaranteeing the right to live and equity.