OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to review official data on the number of people covered by healthcare insurance plans in Brazil.

METHODS: We conducted a search in the public electronic database available Agencia Nacional de Saude Suplementar (ANS) website. ANS is the Federal Agency in charge of regulating the relation between HMOs and private healthcare consumers. The search took the longest data range available in ANS database, starting in 2000. In addition, we combined IBGE (National Brazilian Institute of Statistics) data on total population to further extract information for our analysis. Furthermore, to better understand the trends we included economic growth and employment data from the Brazilian Central Bank (BACEN).

RESULTS: The Brazilian population grew 19% (+33 million people) in 18 years (2000: 175 million people; 2018: 208 million people). Meanwhile, the population covered by private healthcare plans grew 66% or +18.9 million people (2000: 28.6 million people; 2018: 47.4 million people). From 2004 to 2014 the number of people covered by a private insurance plans increased 4.7% yearly (CAGR 2004-2014). 2014 was the apex in the number of people in the private market: 50.3 million. From 2015 to 2017 a total of 3 million people left the market, a 6% reduction. The slowdown of the Brazilian economy during that period (2015-2017) impacted the jobs market which had an effect on the private healthcare market. Circa 80% of the people in this market have healthcare plans via their employers. Preliminary data for 2018 (January-March) show a slight increase in the number of people covered by private healthcare plans (+ 122 thousand people) vs. December/2017.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite the contraction in previous years, the Brazilian private healthcare market still encompasses a significant portion of the population (22.7% as of March 2018). Recent data show the private market is recovering.