Indignation and hope.

The political crisis in Brazil and its economic and social impacts on the field of health and the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS) permeated the debates at the 3rd Brazilian Congress on Health Policy, Planning, and Management held by Brazilian Public Health Association (ABRASCO) in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte State, in early May 2017. Defense of the SUS and the right to health echoed throughout the Congress, given the budget cuts in social programs and threats to the system’s sustainability resulting from the ultraliberal reforms under way in the country. The debates on social and health policies featured criticism of the dismantling of the SUS and the constraints on social inclusion policies perpetrated by the current Administration, which has cut funding for programs and projects through a Constitutional Amendment Bill (PEC) aimed at freezing public spending on social programs, while reaffirming the Administration’s insistence on policies to privatize healthcare (e.g., with so-called “lowincome health plans”). The theme of development and alternatives for overcoming the country’s political and social crisis highlighted the debates that unveiled the reasons for the crisis and the agents and interests behind the current Administration’s liberalizing reform program with the support of Congress and the hegemonic media that spearheaded the institutional break interrupting the term of the President elected in 2014. Multiple voices at the congress called for agreements on new arrangements involving the various collective stakeholders to update the debate on strategies for the Brazilian Health Reform and organize the struggle and mobilization in the resistance against the attempts to dismantle the SUS and the country’s incipient Social Protection System, a legacy of the 1988 Constitution. This process materialized in numerous thematic meetings, council meetings, and the meeting of the Health Reform forum, which expanded its membership and launched proposals to rebuild its political and organizational agenda. More than 2,000 people participated in the congress, representing every state of Brazil and demonstrating the keen interest by stakeholders in public health in the political debate and discussion on knowledge production in health policy, planning, and management. The variety of themes fostered a productive dialogue on crucial issues for the survival and consolidation of the SUS, including judicialization (recourse to legal action to obtain Indignation and hope