Top presidential candidates agree on health care boost for Mexico

Signaling agreement from all three of Mexico's top presidential candidates, representatives of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Ricardo Anaya and José Antonio Meade have confirmed support for low-cost basic healthcare insurance plan Seguro Popular.

The representatives also agreed that investment in the health care system should increase to 9% of GDP from the current 6.2% (according to the OECD). Mexico will hold general elections on July 1.

Though taking different tacks to address the problem, the consensus on boosting health care spending portends strongly of the issue becoming a legislative priority as early as this fall after the elections.

Speaking at a health care forum in Mexico City, Jorge Alcocer Varela, representing leftist frontrunner AMLO, criticized the deterioration of health care during the current administration under fiscal austerity.

That austerity, nevertheless, is credited for maintaining Mexico's fiscal integrity and credit ratings through a particularly rough period that included the bottoming out of global oil prices and the wave of uncertainty brought to the economy with the election of US President Donald Trump.

Alcocer said it was now important to draw on those benefits and refocus efforts on the health agenda, according to a report from local media outlet El Economista.

"The republic's austerity is making it possible to recover and implement health care with transparency and without corruption," said Alcocer, adding that AMLO's promised elimination of corruption should recover the equivalent of 8% of GDP and allow for broad, well-funded restructuring of health services.

Outside the AMLO camp, many view his promise to eradicate corruption as wishful thinking given that Mexico is a country that is plagued with widespread corruption at all levels of government.

For his part, Salvador López Brito, who spoke for AMLO's top contender Ricardo Anaya, focused his proposal on rebalancing the budget to more equitable health care, noting that the health systems for the military and state oil giant Pemex receive disproportionately more funding than private sector health care system IMSS and government employee health care system ISSSTE.

"While the annual per capita expenditure for institutions like Pemex or the armed forces is above 10,000 pesos (US$509) per patient, the current spend for ISSSTE and IMSS per capita ranges between 3,500 and 4,000 pesos," said López Brito. "There is the inequality of treatment that is given to the poorest and most marginalized part of the country served by the health ministry," adding that the government per capita spend for users of Seguro Popular is "barely 1,100 pesos" per year.

"These are ranges that we have to close," said López Brito.

Anaya represents a strange-bedfellows coalition of Mexico's traditional conservative party (PAN) and traditional liberal party (PRD), and as such his campaign has been marked by priorities from both parties.

That said, both López Brito and Alcocer, as opposition to the ruling PRI party, blamed reduced funding during President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration for key health issues, such as diabetes, obesity and anti-smoking efforts.

Luis Madrazo, a key media proxy for ruling party candidate José Antonio Meade, spoke at the event and also addressed adjustments to the budget though adding the importance of infrastructure improvement as well.

"Let's see what needs there are and from there build a system and economy that supports it. José Antonio Meade proposes the Avanzar Contigo program to approach everyone's individual needs. That means having the knowledge - and today technology allows this - of what each person needs in order to allocate funds efficiently, and after that have efficient policies, as is needed for universality, to strengthen Seguro Popular and clinics to 100%," said Madrazo, as cited in El Economista.