Congressional Chamber’s Medical Expenses in Six Months Total R$93 million

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Chamber of Deputies spent R$93 million on medical and dental assistance for deputies and employees from January to June this year. The sum is virtually the equivalent disbursed for these services throughout all last year, when R$100 million were spent, and is close to the total amount provided in the 2019 Budget — R$117 million.

All deputies are entitled to a health plan, which is funded by the Chamber. However, the R$93 million were used for additional services: funding the Chamber’s medical department and reimbursing deputies and servants’ expenses which are not covered by the plan, such as the Marco Feliciano’s (Podemos-SP) dental treatment, disclosed by the Estado newspaper last Saturday, August 3rd.

As shown in the report, the deputy pastor was reimbursed R$157,000 for a dental treatment performed in a clinic in Luziânia (GO). The deputy argued that he needed a jaw joint correction and to restore his smile with crowns and implants.

The deputy admitted that the cost of this treatment became “expensive,” but said he had found more costly budgets in the public coffers. “It’s an expensive treatment, but it was for health reasons, not aesthetics. It was done so I could work. As I am an employee, and since where I work there is this alternative, I needed the treatment,” he said. “This is not a crime.”

Medical and dental reimbursements are available to deputies and employees even though everyone has access to a complete health plan with network coverage connected to the Caixa Econômica Federal.

The convention, managed by the Health Assistance Program of the Chamber of Deputies (Pró-Saúde), provides assistance throughout Brazil and grants access to the main hospitals in the country. Among the services offered are medical-hospital, dental, physiotherapy, psychiatric, and even home care services.

This contract is among the Chamber’s highest fixed expenses. Signed in 2017, it costs R$445 million for two years.

In addition to the health plan, the Chamber possesses a medical facility equivalent to a small hospital, which includes a CT scanner and a mobile ICU. There are seventy doctors from seventeen different fields available on-site to deputies and civil servants.

Reimbursements up to R$50,000 are automatically allowed. Nonetheless, the Chamber allows the reimbursement of greater expenses. Expenses of up to R$50,000 may be directly authorized by the Chamber’s second vice-presidency. Above that amount, authorization from the Governing Board is required.

In 2018, reimbursements amounted to R$8 million, requested by 203 deputies. Approximately forty percent of this amount was paid to a single member, former deputy Sabino Castelo Branco (PTB-AM). He had an authorized refund of R$3.2 million. Branco suffered a stroke and was hospitalized for a long time at Hospital Sírio-Libanês.

The Chamber has been limiting transparency on how much and how each deputy or servant requests a medical-hospital reimbursement since 2013. Data may be obtained through a request via the Access to Information Act (LAI), although the reason for the expense or where it was spent is not available.