Mexico pharmaceuticals and health care system reviewed

Mexico's future health care expenditure hinges on the country's upcoming elections, scheduled for 2012, which predictably hold the key to a number of changes in government spending decisions.

The opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, for example, has been campaigning for some months to have the estimated oil price (up from $63 per barrel) in the government’s budget adjusted higher, in order to free up the scope for overall spending in the 2011 budget.

Notwithstanding political grandstanding, however, Business Monitor International expects health care spending in Mexico to rise from 757.70 billion Mexican pesos ($56.15 billion) in 2009 to 1,011.72 billion pesos ($97.52 billion) by 2014, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.95% in local currency terms and 11.67% in US dollars.