Health care in Mexico

Health care in Mexico is provided via public institutions, private entities, or private physicians. Health care delivered through private health care organizations operates entirely on the free-market system, i.e., it is available to those who can afford it. This is also the case of health care obtained from private physicians at their private office or clinic. Public health care delivery, on the other hand, is accomplished via an elaborate provisioning and delivery system put in place by the Mexican Federal Government.

Affordability

According to the site www.internationalliving.com, health care in Mexico is described as very good to excellent while being highly affordable, with every medium to large city in Mexico having at least one first-rate hospital. In fact, some California insurers sell health insurance policies that require members to go to Mexico for health care where costs are 40% lower. Some of Mexico's top-rate hospitals are internationally accredited. Americans, particularly those living near the Mexican border, now routinely cross the border into Mexico for medical care. Popular specialties include dentistry and plastic surgery. Mexican dentists often charge 20 to 25 percent of US prices, while other procedures typically cost a third what they would cost in the US. The www.internationalliving.com site states that on average, an office visit with a doctor—specialists included—will cost about US$25, an overnight stay in a private hospital room costs about $35, and a visit to a dentist for teeth cleaning costs about $20. Some 40,000 to 80,000 American seniors spend their retirement years in Mexico with a considerable number receiving nursing home and health care.

Health statistics

Aggregate health statistics for Mexico have improved greatly since the 1970s. However, Mexico lags well behind other OECD countries in health status and health care availability.

Total health care spending accounted for 6.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005; per capita spending on health care was US$675 (adjusted for purchasing power parity)—about a quarter of the OECD average.

During 2005, 45.5 percent of health spending was paid from public sources—comparable to the share of public spending in the United States but significantly below the OECD average. Private financing in Mexico is almost entirely in the form of out-of-pocket payments, as only 3.1 percent of total expenditures on health are funded through private health insurance.Consistent with every other major industrialized country (except the U.S.), government healthcare in Mexico is universal, making private programs' health insurance unnecessary except for use in private hospitals.

Some authorities have noted that while Mexico has some 3000 private hospitals, some private “hospitals” could hardly be considered hospitals at all, since they have no laboratories, radiography equipment, or even nurses.[6] The remaining 1000 or some public hospitals account for the majority of hospital beds and, in fact, the bulk of private hospitals are institutions with less than 20 beds.

In 2005, Mexico had 1.8 doctors and 2.2 nurses per 1,000 population, a significant increase in health care personnel over the previous decade but again below the OECD averages for these indicators. The mortality rate for children younger than five years was 17 per 1,000 live births in 2005, and Mexico has shown a faster acceleration to lower mortality rates than the U.S., Cuba, and Canada in the last 10 years. Ninety-seven percent of the population had direct access to potable water and 80 percent to sanitation. Also in 2005 the incidence of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) among persons aged 15 to 49 was 0.3 percent. At 11,000 deaths/year vs. 22,000/year in the U.S., this represents a 44% higher per capita death rate than the United States.

History

Health care in Mexico dates to at least 1791, when the Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, was founded. The institution, still functioning, is now a World Heritage Site. It is one of the oldest and largest hospital complexes in Latin America. The complex was founded by the Bishop of Guadalajara to combine the functions of a workhouse, hospital, orphanage, and almshouse.

The ubiquitous Mexican health care program IMSS was founded in 1943. In the early 1990s, Mexico showed clear signs of having entered a transitional stage in the health of its population. When compared with 1940 or even 1970, Mexico in the 1990s exhibited mortality patterns that more closely approximated those found in developed societies. By 2009, during the notorious swine flu pandemic, the World Health Organization director said that Mexico "gave the world a model of rapid and transparent reporting, aggressive control measures, and generous sharing of data and samples". The CDC's flu director Nancy Cox, added that Mexico's response "impressed the entire world".