PASSAGE 1
(…) Today, Brazil’s “Sistema Único de Saúde” —or SUS— is cherished as a protection against steep medical
bills. “Brazil has the lowest rate of catastrophic health expenditures (2.2 percent) of nearly any other country in
the region," James Macnko, an associate professor of public health at New York University, told me. “That is a
higher level of financial protection than Chile, Mexico, and certainly the U.S. have achieved.” (…)
[05] Universal healthcare is also, as it turns out, relatively cheap: Brazil spends just 9 percent of GDP on
healthcare to the U.S.’s 18 percent. But the funding for the SUS system is split among the federal, the state, and
the municipal governments, and that’s where the trouble begins.(…)
Brazilians in the wealthy south tend to live better, healthier lives than their poorer northern countrymen.
The infant mortality rate of the north is twice as high as that of the south. That poor northeastern area of
[10] “Maranhão” has only about 0.58 doctors per 1,000 people, while the richer Rio de Janeiro has 3.44. The richest
fifth of Brazil's population is twice as likely to receive prenatal care as the poorest fifth. In 2012, between 62 and
75 percent of people in the south who needed kidney transplants received one, but only 13 to 27 of those living in
the rest of Brazil were able to.
KHAZAN. Olga. What the U.S. can learn from Brazil’s healthcare. May 8, 2014. Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/the-struggle-for-universal-healthcare/361854/ Access on: 6/7/2016. (Adapted).
The author mentions that "Brazilians in the wealthy south tend to live better, healthier lives than their poorer northern countrymen. The infant mortality rate of the north is twice as high as that of the south. That poor northeastern area of “Maranhão” has only about 0.58 doctors per 1,000 people, while the richer Rio de Janeiro has 3.44.
The richest fifth of Brazil's population is twice as likely to receive prenatal care as the poorest fifth.
" (lines 8-11) to show that
