Crisis, Neoliberal Health Policy, and Political Processes in Mexico

Abstract

The Mexican case represents an orthodox neoliberal health policy in the context of the structural adjustment adopted by the Mexican government in 1983. The social costs of this strategy are very high, including an increase in unemployment, wage depression, regressive redistribution of wealth, and profound changes in social policies. These transformations are reflected in the health sector, where the four main axes of neoliberal policy—expenditure restrictions, targeting, decentralization, and privatization—have been implemented. This represents a change in social policy from a model based on citizens' social rights and the state's obligation to guarantee them, to a model characterized by selective public charity. This strategy has been imposed on society as a result of the Mexican corporative political regime based on a state party system. Since 1985, however, there has been a growing process of independent organization of civil society. This led in the presidential elections of 1988 to the defeat of the candidate of the governing party by the candidate of a popular-democratic opposition front. Although the government party imposed its candidate through electoral fraud, social mobilization against neoliberal policies continues in the midst of an important political crisis that can only be resolved by profound democratization of Mexican society.