[Financing of health care for the aged]

To determine the direct financial requirements for providing health care to the elderly in Mexico along with an estimation of the current expenditures from services provided to this same population.

Health care needs for the elderly were estimated from the censuses and the database of the National Health Survey II. In addition, service use trends for the aged were obtained from health sector statistical yearbooks. Finally, the amounts of expenditures were estimated by two methods: a) using a formula that considers hospital discharges, daily bed costs and length of stay; and b) inferring hospital expenditures and ambulatory visits from the numbers of hospital discharges.

Currently health care needs of the aged outnumber the amount of resources and the capacity of the health care sector to meet these needs. Our estimates for the year 1994 show that 4.9% of the total budget available to public health care institutions was dedicated to hospital services provided to the elderly.

In Mexico, the aged population health needs are already a priority, due to the particular nature of their needs and demand. Taking care of this population demands an important fraction of the resources spent in hospital services. To correctly plan and allocate resources for providing health care to this population developing a research agenda is an important requirement.