Health budget cut to increase burden on private hospitals in Brazil

According to the president of the National Association of Private Hospitals (ANAHP) of Brazil, the burden of healthcare services will increase on private hospitals in the country owing to a significant cut in healthcare budget. According to him, 53% of the Universal Health Care (SUS, Brazil) is provided by private hospitals. Around 6,000 hospitals are operating in the country, 2,000 of them are public entities, 2,400 are private for-profit, and 1,400 are private, non-profit (philanthropic). Among the philanthropic private, the Portuguese Beneficent (SP) provides around 55% of care for patients through the SUS. The remaining 45% is for people, who are covered by health insurance. Still, the government transfer is only 13% of hospital revenue and the rest is funded by health plans. At present, an increasing numbers of people are moving to the SUS because they have lost the health plan due to the crisis and unemployment. Over January 2015-March 2016, around 1.5 million people lost health insurance. In 2015, total spending on healthcare was BRL 563 billion. Of this, BRL 255 billion was spent on public healthcare and BRL 308 billion on private healthcare. Of the total expenditure on public health, BRL 92 billion was funded by the federal government, BRL 72.5 billion by States, and BRL 90.6 billion by municipalities.