Argentina offers both a public and private health care system. About 28 million Argentinians have health insurance through their unions and go to clinics called obras sociales for medical care. About 5 million people from the middle and upper classes are privately insured. Some large private health insurance companies have their own hospitals.

About 7 million people, a fourth of the population, do not have health insurance. Of these, almost half are children. Those without health insurance go to public hospitals when they need treatment. These hospitals are equipped to handle emergencies and have the facilities for all forms of treatment. Government improments of the public health system during the las 5 years have covered almost all needed health care services.

Although most areas have a safe water supply and healthy living conditions, in certain interior regions, particularly in the north, and in the villas miserias of the cities, living conditions are very poor.

AIDS-related diseases are, as in the rest of the world, growing, and cholera has reappeared in some regions in very few numbers for some years ago.