Reinstituted by the new fiscal framework, the health spending floor requires the government to allocate up to R$21 billion for the area this year, said this Friday (22) the Federal Budget Secretary of the Ministry of Planning, Paulo Bijos . He said that the government is evaluating options from where to obtain resources to spend the R$189 billion minimum limit.
According to the old spending ceiling, the minimum limits for health and education were adjusted according to 2016 spending, corrected for official inflation by the Broad National Consumer Price Index (IPCA). The new framework reestablished the previous rule, which obliges the government to apply 15% of net current revenue (RCL) in updated values, as determined by the Constitution.
Currently, the 2023 Budget reserves R$168 billion for health. The Bimonthly Revenue and Expense Assessment Report, a document that updates the Budget estimates released this Friday, updated the RCL estimates to around R$1.26 trillion, raising the minimum limit to R$189 billion.
“For this RCL of now [valor estimado no relatório de setembro]we would reach R$20 billion [de diferença]”, acknowledged Bijos in a press conference during the presentation of the bimonthly report.
Contingency
The report presented this Friday did not include the R$21 billion in the new estimate for mandatory spending. If the value were considered, the government would have to contingency (temporarily block) the same value from other ministries, which would threaten the functioning of public services, a situation known as shutdown.
According to the Federal Budget Secretary, the non-inclusion occurred because sectors of the government itself disagree on the value to be restored to the health floor. Bijos, however, stated that the government will comply with the Constitution and provide a solution to the issue in 2023. This is because the verification of compliance with the minimum standards for health and education only occurs at the end of each year.
Bill
The government tries to resolve the issue in two ways. Firstly, the economic team awaits the outcome of a process at the Federal Audit Court (TCU) regarding the constitutional floors of education and health opened by the Public Ministry. The government is also considering carrying out its own consultation with the body if the process takes time. Secondly, it tries to reduce the impact of the new minimum limits in Congress.
On the 14th, the Chamber of Deputies approved a complementary bill that allows the percentage of 15% to be applied to the RCL contained in the original version of the General Budget of the Union. The change would reduce the impact of R$21 billion to R$ $5 billion. This is because the original text of the 2023 Budget predicted R$108.8 billion less in net revenue compared to September’s Bimonthly Income and Expense Assessment Report.
The complementary bill deals with compensation from the Union to states and municipalities due to the cut in the Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS) on fuels in last year’s presidential campaign. During the processing, the leader of the PT in the Chamber, deputy Zeca Dirceu (PT-PR), rapporteur of the proposal, included the change in the calculation of the minimum health minimum.
Response
Even with a possible reduction in the limit, the Federal Budget Secretary highlights that the government has not stopped prioritizing health. “With the spending ceiling, the floor would be R$147 billion, in 2023 we have an allocation of R$168 billion [para a saúde]. We are well above, we have R$20 billion more [em relação ao limite original]”, he declared.
Paulo Bijos also highlighted that the government set aside R$7.3 billion to pay the national nursing minimum, an expense that is not within the minimum health limit. In relation to 2024, the secretary explained that a large part of the R$50 billion increase for the sector arises from the constitutional minimum rule.
CONTINUES AFTER ADVERTISING
During the processing of the new fiscal framework, the government tried to include a transition rule to restore the constitutional minimums for education and health, but was unable to do so. At the end of March, the Secretary of the National Treasury, Rogério Ceron, said that the government was studying sending proposed amendments to the Constitution in 2025 to change the calculation of spending floors and find another criterion that was not linked to revenues. The information is from Agência Brasil.
