In the last 17 years, health policy in Mexico has been shifted from a conception of integrated health care and a gradually extended coverage as a major responsability of the State and health care public institutions, to in the one hand, a very active promotion of market and private profit in health services and in the other, poverty relief programs. In this paper we identify different periods corresponding to the last three presidential terms. Each clearly represent different stages of health sector reform: transitional (1982-1988), mercantilisation and poverty relief (1988-1994) and, strengtheing of the so called health markets (1994-2000). The analised transformation is part of the set of secundary reforms subordinated to the structural adjusment and the economic and social megaprojects impossed by the international financial intitutions.
Health Policy; Privatisation; Health Polarisation
