The federal government has announced the creation of a new health care program for people not covered by the IMSS and ISSTE social security schemes.

At an event yesterday to mark World Health Day, President López Obrador said that a new government department to be called the National Institute of Health for Well-Being will provide medical services to more than 60 million Mexicans without insurance.

“We’re going to restructure the whole health system . . .” he declared.

Shortly after he took office in December, López Obrador announced that his government would establish a new integrated federal health system to replace the existing system, which he said wasn’t working.

He also said the Seguro Popular health care program – which currently offers free health care services to people with no other insurance – would be replaced by a new scheme.

The president said yesterday that the government wants to improve all public medical services.

“We want to improve the public health system . . . we have to guarantee the right to healthcare with deeds, in reality, in practice, because it’s provided for in the constitution but in reality, it’s a dead letter because that right doesn’t exist,” López Obrador said.

The president blamed past governments for privatizing parts of the health care system and leaving it “in ruins” as a result.

“In recent times, it went backwards because, like education, they bet on putting healthcare to market as though it were a commodity, so that to gain access to healthcare and education, you had to have economic means,” López Obrador said.

In January, the Morena party leader declared that Mexico will have a health care system comparable to those in Canada, the United Kingdom and Denmark in two years.

Yesterday, López Obrador said “we’re not going to walk away from what the people need” and that universal healthcare will be “a dream come true.”

Source: El Financiero (sp), Notimex (sp)