ABSTRACT:
This paper analyzes the initial measures and early-stage achievements of the Federal Government program “Agora Tem Especialistas” (PATE), launched in May 2025, with the purpose of expanding the population’s access to consultations, diagnostic tests, and surgeries that comprise specialized care within Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS). The objective is to assess the direction and scope of the announced and planned activities. To this end, PATE calls for studies that address two dimensions. The first concerns the feasibility of the planned actions in terms of provider adherence, pricing, and prospects for territorial capillarization, raising questions about the current state and future trajectory of Brazil’s health system. The second dimension involves reflection on citizenship, social rights, and democracy in peripheral countries marked by persistent structural inequalities. The methodology consists of documentary analysis of the program’s legal and normative framework, as well as quantitative and descriptive analysis of the first available data, including its pricing table, the characteristics of the initial service provider proposals, and the innovations in its financing structure. The results show that the program is based on a specific list of procedures, developed using epidemiological criteria and the size of waiting lists for specialized care. Its implementation relies on market-based remuneration levels, which are mostly higher than those established in other pricing tables used by the Brazilian public sector. The initial proposals are still incipient, and some private providers still display structural weaknesses in delivering procedures with greater technological complexity. The study indicates that the program’s capacity to expand access to specialized care will depend on a complex combination of private sector providers and public management engagement. Its effectiveness in expanding access and mitigating regional inequalities remains uncertain.