Politics: Healthcare – more policy improvisation that worsens the situation
President López Obrador’s latest effort to recruit doctors on loan from Cuba has stoked outrage within the medical sector and sparked intense debate on the deepening problems plaguing the country’s health system. These problems have been greatly magnified by the series of improvised “solutions” the administration has doubled down on for the past three and a half years.
These "solutions" include the administration’s decision in January 2020 to eliminate the Seguro Popular non-contributory health system in which up to 53 million people were enrolled and replace it with an Institute of Health for Wellbeing (Insabi) that the president insisted would deliver the sort of care available in Nordic countries and provide universal coverage to all Mexicans, free of charge. In keeping with the president’s maxim that experience should account for a tiny percentage of any official’s qualifications, the institute is headed by an archeologist without any previous experience in the health sector and has provided nothing remotely similar to Nordic quality care, nor has it provided free, universal coverage. On the contrary, it has presided over an accelerated deterioration of coverage and care and proven to be such an unmitigated disaster that officials appear to have been preparing since last year to dismantle it entirely.
This week we provide an extensive analysis of the many problems facing the health system, the extent to which the quality and availability of public sector care are deteriorating, and the extent to which families, especially the poorest ones, are having to spend more out of pocket on health. We also take a look at the problems patients are facing in obtaining medicines as the administration has yet to come up with a workable system to replace the pharmaceutical procurement arrangements that AMLO also canceled upon taking office.
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