Mexico’s massive public health care institute is mired in a desperate financial situation with 88 percent of its budget destined for salaries and paying the pensions of former employees.
Worse still, some analysts say the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), which provides health care for just over of half of Mexico’s population, will go broke by 2015.
Gustavo Leal, a specialist in social service affairs at UAM Xochimilco, says IMSS’ pension funds are likely to run out by 2015.But even before then, perhaps as early as next year, IMSS will be forced to dig into a 18-billion-peso contingency fund to meet its obligations, he told Spanish-language daily Milenio.
IMSS is mostly funded by contributions from workers and their employers, who provide the bulk of IMSS funding. The federal government’s share represents just 13 percent of IMSS’ total expenditure.
IMSS’ annual wage bill is 121 billion pesos, while pensions eat up 703 billion pesos.
However, Leal said the pension burden is not the main problem. That is employers’ evasion of IMSS contributions and the small number of new subscribers due to the country’s lackluster economic growth and the rise of the underground economy in the past five years.
Some analysts say IMSS needs to revise its labor contract with its employees, not only to ease the financial burden but to introduce practices that will make the running of the organization more efficient.
Major complaints include the long wait times to see specialists and a frequent shortage of certain medicines.
Some analysts say the IMSS also needs to address the deficit accrued by its Family Insurance Program (in which the self-employed and even foreign residents) can obtain relatively inexpensive health cover.
Outgoing IMSS Director Daniel Karem believes all is not gloom and doom. During the past six-year presidential administration, 76 new IMSS facilities were built and 200 were renovated, he noted recently.
Despite the financial restraints, 13 billion pesos has been invested in cutting-edge technology, he said.
Of the 80,000 doctors currently employed by the IMSS, 17,500 joined under Karem’s stewardship. There are also 64 percent more specialists than six years ago.
Karem noted that according to recent surveys, eight out of ten IMSS subscribers said they were satisfied with the service they receive.