Víctor Osorio/ Reform Agency
Tuesday, December 27, 2022 | 06:27
CDMX.- Mexican households spend seven times more on health than the federal government. Last week, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador presumed that in Mexico all Covid-19 patients could be cared for in a hospital bed, but the Inegi reports show other data.
During 2021, one of the years hit by the pandemic, households spent more than one trillion 77 billion pesos on health.
This is the sum of 672 billion pesos spent directly to cover their health needs and 404 thousand 976 million in unpaid work they did for health care.
Meanwhile, the resources allocated to Branch 12 Health in the Expenditure Budget last year amounted to just 145 thousand 414 million pesos.
Without considering unpaid work, household spending on health represented 40.1 percent of the total supply of goods and services related to health.
“Of the consumption of goods and services for health care carried out by households, spending on medicines and other goods concentrated 50.7 percent of the total,” explained the Inegi when presenting the results of the Satellite Account of the Health Sector of Mexico ( CSSSM) 2021.
“Followed by medical consultations and support goods and services -in which are found, for example, medical insurance premiums-, with a participation of 14.8 percent; hospital services, with 14 and other services associated with care of health, with 5.7”.
Regarding the value of unpaid work assigned by households to prevention, care and maintenance of health, care for members of the household itself concentrated 74.7 percent of the total.
Health care for sick people from other homes represented 23 percent and voluntary work in health, through non-profit institutions, reached 2.3 percent.
Women covered 70.2 percent of the total care time and men 29.8 percent, according to the report.
The Inegi reported, on the other hand, that employment in the Health sector was located last year at 2.4 million paid jobs, which represented 6.1 percent of the total national economy.
The activities of hospital services and medical offices, he detailed, concentrated most of these positions, with 31.2 and 20 percent, respectively. Related services represented 15.3 percent of the total employment in the sector, the manufacture of medicines and healing materials, 10.1, and public health administration institutions, 8.2.
Care for patients at home grows
The increase in household spending on health is due to a greater number of patients who are cared for at home, agreed members of the Health Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.
Éctor Ramírez Barba, secretary of the Commission, pointed out that there are also higher expenditures on the purchase of medicines.
He recalled that according to official figures, of the 53 million IMSS beneficiaries, 20 million did not use their services, which means that at least three times a year they paid for medical services or medicines out of pocket.
In the case of ISSSTE, the PAN member said, it is 47 percent of the beneficiaries who do not use their services.
This situation also generates a disadvantage for women, because in 80 percent of the cases they are the ones who care for the sick, although there are states like Oaxaca, where the percentage reaches 90 percent.
Very far from the Danish model
Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised that Mexico would have a health system like Denmark’s, but in that country public spending on health represented 86 percent of total spending in the sector in 2019, according to the latest information available.
Spending equals 10 percent of its GDP.
Private spending represented almost 14 percent of spending that same 2019.
Denmark’s healthcare system is universal and decentralized, with the government providing block grants from tax revenue to regions and municipalities, which are the providers of services.
