The State as an Obstacle to Health: A Critique of the Brazilian Public System During the Pandemic

The Brazilian State and its defenders often justify its intervention in healthcare by presenting the Unified Health System (SUS) as indispensable, especially during pandemics or in serving the poor. However, this article argues that such dependence is not a sign of progress, but of the systematic destruction of alternative solutions by the very same State. Drawing on economic reasoning and socio-political observation, it is demonstrated that without heavy taxation and bureaucratic restrictions, the population could afford better private care. The SUS becomes not a solution, but a trap: it hides the fact that competition, deregulation, and the reduction of state intervention would lower healthcare costs and increase access. In short, the State creates the scarcity it claims to solve.