[Popular Health Insurance: key piece of inequity in health in Mexico].

This work is aimed at presenting an analysis of the Mexican health systems current situation resulting from successive reforms which have been carried out since the 1980s. Special interest is placed on the role which the Seguro Popular de Salud (SPS--a 'popular', meaning universal, health insurance plan) has played, being a key piece in commercializing medical attention. The first part of this work thus presents the main antecedents for the changes made during the last two decades of the last century and analyses the current situation since the start of the new millennium.

[Inequality and erroneous social policy produce inequity in México].

The different conceptualizations regarding equity and inequality in health are discussed, concluding that inequity and inequality are not synonyms. It is suggested that inequality should be used for describing epidemiological profiles and equity in relationship to the distribution of and gaining access to health attention services. The situation in México is reviewed in greater detail, as there is great socioeconomic polarisation in this country, a privatizing sanitary reform which has increased inequity and incomplete citizenry as the main obstacles for gaining a reduction in inequity in health.