Medical care in Mexico.

I have a friend in Zihua with a limited income and a child that needs to be seen by a doctor in Michoacan on a regular basis. The doctor visit costs 5500 Pesos. I was under the impression that only in the US people have to pay for doctor visits. Is the system in Mexico equally backward? Living in Europe many years ago, when I got sick, my mother would call the doctor who would come, check me out, write a prescription and there was never a bill. Doesn't Mexico have a similar system, at least for the financially stressed?

Mexico is working on their universal healthcare system, but there's still a long ways to go. They can go to the local clinic or DIF, but if they don't have ISSSTE (for state workers) or IMSS (Seguro Social), then for more advanced medicine it's more complicated. When I had my cataract surgery it was with a state clinic, and I was billed according to my ability to pay, so I saved a lot of money, but I still had to pay something. I would recommend they sign up with IMSS if they haven't already.

My understanding is that there are at least three levels of public health care in Mexico.

For my employees, I pay for seguro social (IMSS). That provides a level of health care services.

As a non-employee, I could choose to enrol in seguro, but my priority for service would be below that of a worker.

Non-employees may chose to enroll for seguro popular. That too is a level below seguro social.

People might choose to enroll in neither. A carpenter who,has done some work for me needs heart surgery in DF. His family is fundraising for it.

And the services of seguro ate not universally applied. Guerrero is a “have not” state. It is not as politically powerful as other places. The health care services of seguro in Zihuatanejo are not as the might be elsewhere.