Posted on 05/22/2007 5:10:49 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
Is all that ails the U.S. health-care system that it’s not run by a Communist dictatorship? That has long been a premise of apologists for Fidel Castro who extol the virtues of medical care on his totalitarian island nation.
Left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is reviving this Cold War relic of an argument in his new movie on health care, Sicko, which premieres in a few weeks and favorably compares the Cuban health-care system to ours. Moore ostentatiously took a few sick 9/11 workers to Cuba for care. “If they can do this,” Moore told Time, referring to the Cubans, “we can do it.”
All that the Cuban government has done, however, is run a decades-long propaganda campaign to convince credulous or dishonest people that its health-care system is worth emulating. These people believe — or pretend to believe for ideological reasons — that a dictatorship can crush a country’s economy and spirit, yet still deliver exemplary medical care.
Cuban health care works only for the select few: if you are a high-ranking member of the party or the military and have access to top-notch clinics; or a health-care tourist who can pay in foreign currency at a special facility catering to foreigners; or a documentarian who can be relied upon to produce a lickspittle film whitewashing the system.
Ordinary Cubans experience the wasteland of the real system. Even aspirin and Pepto-Bismol can be rare, and there’s a black market for them. According to a report in the Canadian National Post: “Hospitals are falling apart, surgeons lack basic supplies and must reuse latex gloves. Patients must buy their sutures on the black market and provide bed sheets and food for extended hospital stays.”
How could it be any different when Cuba embarked on a campaign of economic self-sabotage with the revolution of 1959? It went from third in per capita food consumption in Latin America to near the bottom, according to a State Department report. Per capita consumption of basic foodstuffs like cereals and meat actually has declined from the 1950s. There are fewer cars (true of no other country in the hemisphere), and development of electrical power has trailed every other Latin American country except Haiti.
But the routine medical care, we’re supposed to believe, is superb. The statistic frequently cited for this proposition is that Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America. Put aside that the reflexively dishonest Cuban government is the ultimate source for these figures. Cuba had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America prior to the revolution and has lost ground to other countries around the world since. It also has an appallingly high abortion rate, meaning most problem pregnancies are pre-emptively ended.
Other countries in Latin America have made advances in health without Cuba’s vicious suppression of human rights (which, no doubt, contributes to the island having the highest suicide rate in Latin America). The way public health works in Cuba was nicely illustrated by the case of Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero, who complained of an outbreak of dengue fever that the regime preferred to ignore in the late 1990s, and was jailed for his trouble.
As is always the case with Cuba, anything that’s wrong is blamed on the United States. If there is a shortage of medicine, well, that’s because of the U.S. embargo. But the United States is not the only country in the world that sells drugs. Cuba could buy them from Europe or elsewhere, and the U.S. embargo makes an exception for medicines.
The only reason to fantasize about Cuban health care is to stick a finger in the eye of the Yanquis. For the likes of Michael Moore, the true glory of Cuba is less its health care than the fact that it is an enemy of the United States. That’s why romanticizing Cuban medicine isn’t just folly, but itself qualifies as a kind of sickness.
There is a spot on the internet that shows pictures from a Cuban hosptial and they are unbelievable.
First the idiots in the Treasury Department. Now NRO. STOP TALKING ABOUT IT! Michael Moore NEEDS us to attack him to make money. Please just ignore him and you will hurt him badly.
Got a link?
I am looking, I cannot find them. I think I saw them pasted on FR.
liberals and communists equal insanity.
Photos of Michael Moore/Fidel Castro/democrat party medical care: Prepare a mega-barf bag before viewing.
http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm
If Moore wanted to make a case for socialized medicine, why in the world would his example be Cuba? Why not Canada or Great Britian?
At least Moore could probably uncover a semblance of truth and fact in Canada and GB.
Not a shred of information he gets in Cuba will be trustworthy and everyone knows it.
FACT: When my Canadian relatives need a major operation, they come to the United States to get it done. What does that tell you about Canada’s attempt at socialized medicine?
Where's the "hugh manatee" when you need it?
At least the Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen, which is carbon-neutral. A flaming MM would require a special rider on the Kyoto Protocol.
Anyone who thinks the government should be running the healthcare services should take a look at the VA Healthcare for a preview of what it would look like.
www.therealcuba.com
He is not alone. I see that Danny Glover was down hugging Hugo Chavez.
“At least the Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen, which is carbon-neutral.”
Michael Moore is filled with methane. He pollutes wherever he goes!
Moore has a history of Marxism and deception. This goes back to his days at Mother Jones where he surpressed a comissioned piece on the human rights violations of the Sandanistas. He’s an old hand at covering up for and elevating left wing tyrannies.
Michael Moore...he’s really not fat... just incredibility full of shit
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