On November 9, 2026, active and retired IMSS workers are scheduled to march from the Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI to the Zócalo in Mexico City. The mobilization comes as institute employees warn that the Universal Health Service (SUS), which starts on January 1, 2027, will increase their workload and saturate services, according to Expansión Política.

The SUS was created by the decree published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on April 17, 2026, which obliges IMSS, ISSSTE, IMSS-Bienestar, Pemex, federal hospitals and national institutes to coordinate in order to serve any person, with or without social security. The first phase begins on January 1, 2027 with primary care, emergencies, high-risk pregnancies, Código Infarto, Código Cerebro, vaccination and continuity of treatments; the second, on July 1, 2027, adds laboratory, imaging and radiotherapy. The decree specifies that expenses will be covered with approved budgets and that no additional resources will be authorized: each institution will recover what it spends through a compensation scheme. For millions of IMSS beneficiaries, the change defines where and how they will be cared for starting in 2027.

In practice, workers anticipate an overload. Israel Sánchez, a stretcher bearer at Hospital General de Zona número 2 in Apizaco, Tlaxcala, told Expansión Política that "we do not see the unification of a health system as entirely viable because there is no budget that can cover everything." Carla Zárate, from the Unidad de Medicina Física y Rehabilitación Siglo XXI, noted that "we will have to work double." To operate, the SUS requires three pillars: an affiliation registry, physical and human capacity, and a package of services with defined resources. The call for the march emerged from an assembly with representatives from seven states, including Ciudad de México, Puebla and Nuevo León, according to La Jornada.

The first stage of the SUS starts on January 1, 2027 and the second on July 1; both will operate with already approved budgets and without additional resources, according to the decree that created it.

This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.