Vol 22, 2013 Annals of Health Law 374
UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE IN MEXICO
Mexicano del Seguro Social). Finally, the System for Social Protection in
Health (SSPH), established in 2003, created the regulatory and financial
conditions to guarantee the universal and effective exercise of the right to
the protection of health, which was introduced in Article 4 of the Mexican
Constitution in 1983.
In this paper, we analyze the evolution of the Mexican legal framework
that culminated in the reforms to the General Health Law of 2003, which
created the SSPH and its operative branch, Popular Health Insurance or
Seguro Popular. This insurance scheme extended health care coverage
with financial protection to all Mexicans citizens in 2012. In the first part,
we discuss the nature of social rights, including the right to health care. In
part two, we describe the evolution of the contents of the legal instruments
(the Constitution, the social security laws and the General Health Law) that
supported the transition in Mexico from health care as the subject of charity
to health care as a labor right and then as a social or citizen right. In part
three, we discuss how the creation of the SSPH established the regulatory
and financial conditions to guarantee the exercise of the right to the
protection of health. The recent history of the Mexican health system
shows that in order to guarantee the justiciability of this right and the
financial viability of its effective exercise, in addition to a constitutional
framework, certain regulatory and financial instruments are needed.
II. HEALTHCARE AS A SOCIAL RIGHT
Rights are the basic rules about what is allowed of people or owed to
people according to some fact, reason, truth, standard or principle.4 Human
rights, in turn, are those rights that a person has by virtue of his or her
humanity.5 These rights may exist as natural or legal rights. Natural rights,
like the right to life, apply to all people and are independent of the laws of
any specific society; they are conferred by God, nature or reason.6 Legal
rights, such as the right to vote, in contrast, exist by virtue of a society’s
customs, laws or legislative actions.7
Human rights may be classified according to their historic origin in three
separate generations.8 First generation rights include civil and political
4. Right Definition, DICTIONARY.COM, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/right (last
visited Mar. 27, 2013).
5. THE FONTANA DICTIONARY OF MODERN THOUGHT 291 (Alan Bullock et al. eds.,
1977).
6. ROGER SCRUTON, A DICTIONARY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT 371-72 (Macmillan 1996).
7. SIMON BLACKBURN, OXFORD DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY 331 (Oxford University
Press 1996).
8. ANTHONYJ.LANGLOIS,NORMATIVE ANDTHEORETICALFOUNDATIONS OFHUMAN
RIGHTS 12, 16 (Oxford University Press), available at http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.com/
