Brazilian political situation and health: from the 2016 coup to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Conjuncture analysis studies in the field of public health have gained space, contributing to systematize  elements of reality and outlining possible scenarios  for better performance in the political arena. Based on historical and dialectical materialism, this essay seeks  to analyze the Brazilian political conjuncture from the  2016 coup to the COVID-19 pandemic. The essay is  structured in three sections: the first recognizes the  importance of thinking about the past to understand  the future, as well as the mobilizing and threatening  forces of the Unified Health System (SUS); the second  outlines a profile of the ultra-neoliberal project  imposed on health policy in the face of the 2016  legal-media-parliamentary coup and the election of President Jair Bolsonaro, in 2018, whose bargaining  chip included the reduction of social security; the third section discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic was  handled by the federal government and subnational entities, as well as the role of civil society and  organized politics. In the final considerations, the  challenges of progressive forces for the 2022 election  year and for the sustainability of a possible popular  government that guarantees the universal right to  health are presented, which is part of the greater  challenge of resuming and guaranteeing democracy  itself.