JUDICIALIZATION OF HEALTH IN BRAZIL AND IN THE STATE OF TOCANTINS

Abstract

The judicialization of healthcare has intensified in Brazil, revealing structural shortcomings in meeting the population’s demands through the Unified Health System (SUS). This article aims to analyze the judicialization of healthcare in Brazil, with emphasis on the State of Tocantins, identifying its impacts on public budgets, legal certainty, and public health policies. This is a qualitative, exploratory, bibliographic, and documentary study conducted between August and September 2025, based on the analysis of scientific articles, doctrinal works, legislation, case law, statistical data, and institutional documents. The sources were selected according to their thematic relevance and organized into categories related to the fundamental right to health, the positive and negative aspects of judicialization, its impacts on public budgets and public policies, legal certainty, the reality of Tocantins, and institutional mechanisms for rationalizing the phenomenon. The results demonstrated that judicialization contributes to the enforcement of the fundamental right to health, particularly in situations involving state omissions, but also produces impacts on budgetary management, public policies, and legal certainty. In Tocantins, mechanisms such as NATJUS and CEMAS stand out as instruments for rationalizing and preventing judicial demands.