• BUDGET: The Mexican government will face the coronavirus pandemic with one of its slimmest public health budgets in history representing 2.5% of the country’s GDP despite growing needs in the country’s public healthcare systems, according to experts.
• RESOURCES: The Mexican government’s 2020 healthcare spending amounts to the equivalent of US 5.4 billion, according to official budget numbers. Still, experts believe that the system needs an extra of at least USD 341 million every month only to stay afloat.
• LEVEL: “The minimum (amount) that would be required at this moment would be to return to the 2015 (budget) level in relative terms. That is: to return to almost 3% points of GDP”, said economist Rodolfo de la Torre, a development expert at the CEEY think tank.
• ANNOUNCEMENT: Earlier this week, Mexico’s Finance Ministry said it had moved ahead with the delivery of USD 637 million to the new centralized public healthcare system (INSABI) and that an extra USD 434 million was on the way. However, these are not new resources.
