In total, the institutions, hospitals and programs that make up the public health sector did not use 62.139 billion pesos that they had available, according to an analysis by the Center for Economic and Budgetary Research (CIEP).
This is the largest figure for the health sector in the last 10 years. In 2013, 9.91 billion pesos were spent in addition, meaning that there was no underspending that year.
In 2018, the last year of the PRI Enrique Peña Nieto’s six-year term, the cut in health spending was 319 million pesos, a difference of 0.04% between what was approved and what was executed. While in 2019, the first year of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, the underspending was 2.8%, with 22,353 million pesos.
During the Peña Nieto administration, from 2013 to 2018, the health sector accumulated a total underspending of 28,677.4 million pesos, compared to 35,555.7 million pesos in the first five years of the López Obrador administration (2019-2023).
This underspending is greater despite the fact that in 2020 and 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the health sector spent more money than originally approved.
