Health Insurance and the Aging: Evidence from the Seguro Popular Program in Mexico

Susan Parker, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)
Rebeca Wong, University of Texas at Galveston

Social security in Mexico has historically provided health benefits to only a fraction of the population in Mexico, those participating in the formal sector. To address this lack of basic health coverage, the Mexican government began the health insurance program Seguro Popular in 2002. Since then, the Seguro Popular has expanded at an impressive rate, and now covers approximately 51 million individuals. This paper analyzes the impact of the Seguro Popular on health expenditures, utilization of services and health status of the aging population in Mexico. While several previous studies have analyzed the short term impacts of the Seguro Popular program, our study is the first to estimate the impacts of the Program a decade after program implementation. For the empirical analysis, we use the Mexican Health and Aging Survey, a longitudinal survey of the population age 50 and over with rounds over the period 2001 to 2012.