Seguro Popular

A voluntary public health insurance scheme created by the Government of Mexico in 2004, intended to extend coverage to Mexicans working outside formal employment and therefore excluded from the country's employer-linked social security health institutes. It offered a defined package of covered services and medicines financed through general taxation and modest income-linked family contributions, and expanded nominal coverage to tens of millions of previously uninsured people over its first decade. Researchers found mixed evidence on how far it reduced catastrophic out-of-pocket health spending and on the consistency of care quality across states. The Mexican government formally abolished Seguro Popular in 2020, replacing it with a new institute, INSABI, amid criticism from the incoming administration of uneven implementation and continuing gaps in medicine availability.