A Healthy Mexico

There are many Mexicos. My family history is split between rural and urban Mexico, with roots in the countryside of Jalisco and Coahuila as well as in Mexico City. Across generations, I learned of the fate of uncles and great-uncles who never reached the age I am now.

The story of our contemporary Mexico is full of vitality. Over the past fifty years, we have managed to push back the leading causes of premature death. Now it falls to our generation to sustain that momentum and take on chronic disease.

It is a transformative thought to imagine every person, anywhere in the country, knowing there is always somewhere to turn for healthcare. How would people feel living in that Mexico? What could we aspire to? What would that Mexico look like?

Mexico has health assets distributed across its entire territory. Global public policy metrics and definitions are too often confined to service quality standards, and they effectively set a benchmark that prevents Mexico from optimizing how it responds to health crises. When Mexico is measured against international peers, that framework prioritizes the needs of countries with more developed health systems and fundamentally different priorities. Mexico must therefore put "response capacity" first.

This concept means being close to people and resolving the most basic health problems that affect every Mexican: ensuring that no child dies of diarrhea, that no mother dies in childbirth, while also building the immediate capacity to respond to acute epidemiological events. Achieving these goals requires monitoring and tracking systems across the entire territory. The contact points already exist, in the various branches of the current health services.

These contact points can generate direct population data and, in turn, provide timely information so that individuals, businesses, and government can act accordingly. We cannot underestimate how important it is that these points operate with enough simplicity to avoid being swallowed by sweeping health reform overnight. We know where that leads: the tragic and disastrous results seen during COVID. We need systems that begin to integrate by staying in contact with the population, so that those at the top can feel the pulse of what is actually happening, the main ailments, gaps, and care needs, ensuring that what is manageable stays that way.

Once Mexicans know that any illness, acute or chronic, can be detected and treated in time, we can rethink everything from household budgets to who governs the country. This shared baseline would bring us closer to a true new dawn for everyone. One in which clear, earmarked taxes directed at operating these contact points mean that the burdens of the many are paid for by those who benefit most.

This is about giving meaning to the social compact the State upholds with all Mexicans. That is a conviction we must anchor and elevate.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is 'response capacity' and why should Mexico prioritize it over global quality benchmarks?

Response capacity refers to a health system's ability to be physically accessible and to resolve the most basic health problems quickly, such as preventing child deaths from diarrhea or maternal mortality during childbirth. Mexico should prioritize this over the quality metrics favored by wealthier nations, because those benchmarks are calibrated to different priorities and do not reflect Mexico's most urgent needs.

How would integrating Mexico's existing health contact points improve public health outcomes?

Connecting the various branches of Mexico's current health services into an integrated network would generate real-time population data, enabling individuals, businesses, and government to respond to health threats early. Keeping these systems operationally simple is essential to avoid the institutional collapse seen during COVID, when fragile, centralized structures failed under pressure.

How should Mexico fund a nationwide health contact point network?

The proposal calls for clear, earmarked taxes directed specifically at operating health contact points across the country, so that the cost of universal basic care is shared equitably, with those who benefit most economically from a healthy, productive population contributing proportionally to the system.