The Relationship Between Remittances and Healthcare

Introduction

Because of the existence of international market and the differences of economy, capital account and also current account between countries, it causes the currency of countries to be different. Therefore, when transferring money abroad to other countries with different currencies, it is important to understand the macroeconomic indicators. Macroeconomic indicators are statistics that indicate the current status of the economy of a state depending on a particular area of the economy such as industry, labor, market and trade. They are published regularly at a certain time by governmental agencies and the private sector. Macroeconomic indicators include inflation, exchange rate, interest rate and so on. Because of the factor of inflation, it causes interest rate to have two types, one is nominal interest rate and another is real interest rate. Nominal interest rate simply means that the rate of interest before adjustment for inflation. While in contrast, real interest rate simply refers to the interest rate after adjustment for inflation. There, it is important to understand the macroeconomic indicators because the real value of money might loss or might gain through transferring money abroad for remittances.

The relationship between remittances and healthcare

There is proof declare that remittances are used widely to afford basic necessities (Lowell BL, 2000). Migrants and their family member in Mexico access to goods and services that they are not able to otherwise purchase by using the remittances provided by US, including consumer goods, housing and also food. Another possibility use of US remittances which had received less attention is that it is used to access to health care. There are relationship between remittances and healthcare. Remittance can be defined as the sum of money sent, especially by mail, in payment for goods or services or as a gift or in short, the action of sending money in payment. While healthcare can defined as the maintenance and improvement of physical and mental health, especially through the provision of medical services. International remittances have direct impact on healthcare expenditures. Large inequities in health care access and health care expenditure is marked in Mexico (Frenk ,J & Lezana,M, 2006). According to the (Mexican Conteo de Poblacion y