Posted on 11/30/2016 8:26:54 PM PST by SeekAndFind
On public-access TV in 1985, Bernie Sanders defended an element of Fidel Castro’s regime: It was rarely mentioned that Castro provided health care to his country. Sanders grumbled that the same could not be said of then-President Reagan.
The comment came back to haunt Sanders in the wake of Castro’s death. On Sunday on ABC’s This Week, host Martha Raddatz played the old clip and then asked Sanders if he was aware that “this was a brutal dictatorship despite the romanticized version that some Americans have of Cuba.” She reminded Sanders that Castro rationed food and punished dissidents, then hit him with the big question: “So have you changed your view of Castro since 1985?”
Sanders said he didn’t exactly remember the context for his comment (being 31 years ago) but that Cubans “do have a decent health-care system.”
Many consider it more than decent. After a visit to Havana in 2014, the director-general of the World Health Organization Margaret Chan called for other countries to follow Cuba’s example in health care. Years before, the World Health Organization’s ranking of countries with “the fairest mechanism for health-system finance” put Cuba first among Latin American and Caribbean countries (and far ahead of the United States).
Cuba has long had a nearly identical life expectancy to the United States, despite widespread poverty. The humanitarian-physician Paul Farmer notes in his book Pathologies of Power that there’s a saying in Cuba: “We live like poor people, but we die like rich people.” Farmer also notes that the rate of infant mortality in Cuba has been lower than in the Boston neighborhood of his own prestigious hospital, Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s.
All of this despite Cuba spending just $813 per person annually on health care compared with America’s $9,403.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
But I can get toilet paper.
Apparently there’s TENS OF THOUSANDS of Cubans who at the hands of the bloody tyrant Castro didn’t live long as anyone.
The Left is brain damaged.
Yeah - and I guess the average annual salary is about $240. So they are paying PLENTY for “free” healthcare.
Leftist romanticize about brutal dictators as long as they’re leftist dictators. Mental disorder.
Read a story in the last month that said the whole spiel about Cuba’s “excellent” health care system is BS, and it is actually worse than it was before Castro. But can’t remember where I saw it.
I went to Havana around the year 2000. I had an accident related to bar stools, booze and women but I fell off the stool and split my cheek open.
Went to clinic; they patched me up. Free? Nope. Wouldn’t take AMEX but Visa, sure. $125! So much for free medical care.
and a fortieth the income...
If I could choose to live the same length of time in prosperity or poverty which would I choose? Hmmmm, such choices.
I see no reason to believe this.
It is a common belief among Americans.
Cuba has definitely pretended to provide great healthcare and be at the top of the field in medicine and biotechnology.
But, Cuba is a closed society without free press or free speech.
Claims made under such circumstances are under no obligation to be believed or accepted, and in fact the opposite is true.
When a government maintains an closed society without free speech and press it is hiding things and any claim they made should be met with skepticism and a very high burden of proof.
Hey Atlantic idiot...The gulag costs next to nothing. And I think you should volunteer to go over and live in your paradise.
Isolation and geography/climate has a lot to do with it. Not because they have a wonderful healthcare system.
“Read a story in the last month that said the whole spiel about Cuba’s “excellent” health care system is BS, and it is actually worse than it was before Castro. But can’t remember where I saw it.”
Anyone who thinks medical care is better in Cuba than in the US is absolutely delusional, and welcome to go there the next time they need health care. I’ve honestly never seen as much abject ignorance as I’ve seen among leftist ‘true believers’.
What complete feces.
I was there in the 2000’s working in the interest section. All of the typical socialist ills - including free health care. It was free - but locals couldn’t even get bloody aspirin much less other medicines.
Delusional leftist scum.
I don’t want to live like the Cubans.
Starting tomorrow we force Doctors, Nurses and Caretakers to work for slave wages.
That should help solve the Cost equation.
“Isolation and geography/climate has a lot to do with it.”
IMHO, falsified data has a lot to do with it.
Why do Cubans live as long as Americans?
It’s the same reason Cuba claims a higher live birth rate than Americans...
THEY DON’T COUNT THEIR ABORTIONS.
Why do Cubans live as long as Americans?
They don’t count murder/suicide/disappeared persons/firing squad deaths in their stats.
Cubans live to old age in spite of not because of. Cubans usually.live into their 80s and 90s naturally in the US. It’s a miracle they still do.in Cuba. Good old.Castilian genetics and plantains.
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