OBJECTIVES: In Brazil a hybrid health care system that comprises a public and a private systems is in place. The objective of this exploratory analysis is to better understand the distribution of resources in terms of annual healthcare expenditures per capita in Brazil in both systems. METHODS: A review of public databases was conducted to raise data on both financial expenditures and the population assigned in each system. Sources were: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística – IBGE (Brazilian Institute for Statistics), Ministério da Saúde (Brazilian Ministry of Health), Agência Nacional de Saúde Suplementar – ANS (Brazilian agency which regulates the private health care sector) and available studies in Portuguese. RESULTS: The total annual health care expenditure (added value) in Brazil is R$ 137.9 billion and it represented 8.4% over the GDP in 2007 (IBGE, 2009). Eighty billion Reais were spent by the private health care system (58.3%), whereas R$ 57.5 billion (41.7%) derived from the public sector. On the public side, 50.6% of the expenditures are from the federal government, 24.5% from the states governments and the remaining 24.9% are funded by the municipalities (Ugá, 2005). Also, 192 million people live in Brazil, 79% of the population depends on the public healthcare system and 21% rely on the private health care system (IBGE, 2009 and ANS, 2009). As a result, a significant difference can be observed in the annual health care expenditure per capita in the private sector when compared to the one found in the public sector, R$ 2,015 vs. R$ 383, respectively (US$ 1 = R$ 1,711 Dec 10, 2009). CONCLUSIONS: The annual health care expenditure per capita in Brazil in the private sector is 5.3 fold the one found in the public sector. Further research is recommended to comprehend whether such a difference might impact on the clinical outcomes of each system.