Longe dos partidos e perto da federação: uma avaliação dos gastos municipais na saúde pública

Abstract

The institutionalization of SUS made the municipalities important players in the public health policy. Thus, it was expected that the amount of resources allocated to public health would be determinate in some measure by the political party preferences. Given these political and institutional contexts, we analyzed the importance of the political party policies at the municipality level as a determinant of the expenditure on public health, as well was other conventional determinants of the expenditures on public health (region, per capita income, GDP, etc). Applying some econometric techniques (quantile regressions and econometric decomposition), we found that the parties’ political preferences have minor influence on the allocation of resources in public health. We conclude that the constitutional regulation (Constitutional Emend 29 or EC29) seems to be a more important determinant to explain the allocation of resources in the period 2002-2006 than the supposed political preferences announced by parties.SUS, health economics, Brazil