Since the 1983 reform, Article 4, fourth paragraph of the Political Constitution of the

United Mexican States establishes: "Every person has the right to health protection",
which requires the Mexican State to accomplish with this constitutional precept.
Based on this, the National Health System of Mexico (SNS) provides health services from
two sectors: public and private, in both cases, under the leadership of the Federal Ministry
of Health. The public sector includes social security institutions that provide services to
workers in the formal sector of the economy and government workers, and institutions
that protect the population without social security. The private sector is conformed of
profit-making or social assistance health establishments.
The SNS is regulated by a set of federal laws and by specific regulations of each one of the
32 states that are part of the country and by specific regulations of social security
institutions.
To cover the costs of providing public services, the financing system comes from three
sources: State, employers and employees. In the case of the private sector, financing is
generated from the spending of the paid-for population.
Similarly, the SNS has had to implement several models of care, which have been linked to
structural reforms, to make these an operational way of applying the reforms.
However, and despite the advances that have been made in health in the last century,
great challenges remain to be overcome: universal access, equity, quality and financial
protection, among others.