The objective of this article is to put in economic perspective the expenditure in health within the pattern of family expenditure of the Mexican households. Information of the National Survey on Income Expenditure of Households (ENIGH) of Mexico of 2004 is analyzed on: structure of the expenditure of the households, expenditure in health and income-expenditure elasticities in health; by quintiles of income and to the condition of insurance in health. It is revealed that the poorest households in Mexico do not rely on their structure of expenditure to support out of the pocket expenses in health, reason why an unexpected event of disease places the families at risk of impoverishment, sale of assets or indebtedness. Other results are the elasticities that were obtained by condition of insurance, quintile of income and type of expenditure; and that there are basic services in health that the Mexican population perceives as if they were luxury goods, among them the orthopedic, dental care and hospitalization. It is emphasized that the income elasticities found can serve as baseline measurement of the effectiveness of the Popular Insurance of Health just orchestrated on the modification of the pattern of family expenditure on health for the first quintiles of income.