Objective. To analyze the coverage of health protection in Mexico, as well as its trends from 2000 to 2012.

Materials and methods. Descriptive analysis using household informant report about health protection in the national health surveys 2000, 2006 & 2012, profiling unprotected population in 2012, and demographic differences by scheme of health protection.

Results. From 2000 to 2012, Mexican population that reported to be without health protection decreased from 57.6 to 21.4%. This reduction is mainly due to the increase in coverage of Seguro Popular, which by 2012 is the main insurer in Mexico, covering 38.5 of the population. Unprotected population is concentrated between 15 and 30 years of age.

Conclusion. These results present a huge increase in health protection in Mexico in the past 12 years. Nevertheless, they also highlight the complexity of reaching universal health protection in a fragmented health system.