Government cuts 59% of Popular Pharmacy to guarantee secret budget in 2023

The Bolsonaro government cut by 59% the budget in 2023 of the Popular Pharmacy program, which serves more than 21 million Brazilians with free medicines, to guarantee more resources for the secret budget – a scheme revealed by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo to transfer funds. funds to parliamentarians without transparency. Expenses for the care of the indigenous population also suffered a “treasure” of 59%.

Contrary to the cut of these programs, the rapporteur’s amendments included in the health budget grew 22%. Imposing individual and bench parliamentary amendments (which the government is obliged to implement) increased by 13%.

The survey was carried out by Bruno Moretti, Senate advisor and health budget specialist. The complete data will be published in the Economic Policy Note of the Public Sector Economics Group of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

The free portion of Farmácia Popular is dedicated to asthma, hypertension and diabetes medications. In 2022, expenses with the free program provided for in the Budget totaled R$ 2.04 billion. In the 2023 Budget project, the government predicted BRL 842 million: a cut of BRL 1.2 billion.

Spending on indigenous health was cut by BRL 870 million, with a forecast of BRL 610 million in 2023 – compared to BRL 1.48 billion in 2022.

“There is no doubt: what the economic team did was to reduce all these expenses to incorporate the amendments. To fit the RP-9 amendments (by the rapporteur), medicines are being taken from the Popular Pharmacy”, says Moretti. “(With the program) The parliamentarian cannot get there at the end and say that the medicine that the patient got for free is the result of his amendment.”

The information is from the newspaper. The State of São Paulo.