Mexican public spend on health care up

Public spending on Mexico's $25 billion health care industry has grownto about 3.5% of Gross Domestic Product from 2.5% five years ago. The growth is attributed to the federal government adding about 8 million people previously without health care into its programs. There are millions of poor people that no one is going to take care of if the government does not, Mexican Health Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente said in a speech to the Council of the Americas, adding that the fee-for-services sector is the most efficient way of providing health care in his country.

While the Mexican government is not planning to privatize the medical services of the public sector, Mr de la Fuente said, there are a number in the system at which the government is not efficient. More and more of those services will be contracted out to private sector providers, he noted. The government is satisfied with the expansion of US and other foreign firms into the Mexican health care system, he noted.

Health care will be a hot issue in next year's Mexican presidential election, he commented, with candidates debating topics including an oversupply of medical specialists in urban areas and an undersupply of general practitioners in rural areas. Meanwhile, private health care increased to 2.5% of GDP from 2%, he said. About 51.9 million Mexicans are insured under the government's social security system, while 2.1 million carry private health insurance, the Minister said. The remaining 43.7 million people are uninsured.