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 Health & Beauty | March 2008 
Plans for Healthcare Services in Mexico for U.S. Citizens
 Frontera NorteSur
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| | Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is moving ahead with his plans to open hospitals in Mexico that cater to US baby boomers. | | |
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is moving ahead with his plans to open hospitals in Mexico that cater to US baby boomers. Slim's business concept might be compared to a maquiladora export factory. A raw product, in this case an ailing US citizen, is imported into Mexico, "put together" and then re-exported back to the home country. Ironically, Slim’s fortune, now estimated to be larger than that of Bill Gates, derives in part from the tycoon's Marlboro cigarette business in Mexico.
In partnership with Grupo Star Medica, Slim's Ideal company intends to open new medical centers in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, and in Los Cabos on the Baja California peninsula. A national hospital chain, Grupo Star Medica is a fast-growing business with expansion plans in Ciudad Juarez and additional Mexican cities. In 2007, Ideal purchased 49 percent of Grupo Star Medica's stock. Specializing in construction and development, Ideal has agreed to help Grupo Star Medica with infrastructure, acquisition and financing.
With its planned medical centers in Puerto Peñasco and Los Cabos, Grupo Star Medica plans to tap into a new market segment of US baby boomers who are buying second homes in Mexico. Reportedly, sales of vacation homes in Los Cabos and Puerto Peñasco increased 30 percent and 45 percent, respectively, during the last three years.
Claudia Velazquez, an analyst for the Softec real estate market analysis firm, said the relative lack of medical services in beach resorts attractive to US vacationers and expatriates is opening up business opportunities for companies like Grupo Star Medica.
"(Baby boomers) are also choosing Mexico because its health system is much cheaper than in the United States," Velazquez said.
Besides Slim, other Mexico-based entrepreneurs are seriously looking at the growing population of US baby boomers who need healthcare services. Their plan is to get US private insurance companies to pay for medical treatment in Mexico.
"For a US insurance policy to pay for medical treatment, the treatment has to comply with certain quality control standards, and we are going to participate with products to serve this niche," said Jaime Jimenez, general director for Mexico Trane, another company on the same path as Slim. Of course, it remains to be seen if the expansion of medical services in Mexico to US residents will help lower private insurance premiums in this country.
Sources: Tribuna de la Bahia/Agencia Reforma, February 26, 2008. Article by Karla Ramirez. Biznews.com.mx, July 9, 2007. Ideal.com.mx
Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
FNS can be found at http://frontera.nmsu.edu/) |
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