ABSTRACT
This commentary is written by two eminent Mexican doctors who have played leading roles in health in their country. It illustrates with a real life example many of the themes discussed in earlier chapters – such as social protection and inequalities – and anticipates others such as universal health coverage which will be discussed in later chapters. It contains the following sections:
• Social policies for the poor in Latin America: conditional cash transfers and universal health coverage
• Expansion of social protection in health to the poor in Mexico • Health conditions and health services in Mexico at the turn of the century: the need
for reform • Creation of the System of Social Protection in Health • Evolution of health expenditure • Expansion of health care coverage • Impact of the Mexican reform on health conditions, responsiveness and financial
protection • Prospects and lessons of the Mexican Health Reform
In the past two decades, Latin America has witnessed the implementation of innovative policies to combat poverty and improve the general welfare of the poor. Salient among them are conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes and several health reform efforts intended to provide comprehensive health care to the non-salaried population. These initiatives have shown positive results, including poverty reduction, enhancement in children´s levels of nutrition and education, expansion of comprehensive health care coverage, and improvements in basic health indicators.1,2
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the implementation of these policies in Mexico, with emphasis on the creation of a new public insurance scheme called Popular Health Insurance or Seguro Popular (SP) that is offering social protection in health to around 50 million Mexicans who had lacked regular access to comprehensive health services.
