I recently read an interview with Che Guevara’s daughter in New Scientist magazine, probably available on line. The interviewer didn’t ask any tough questions and the net effect was kind of like a paid advertisement for Castro’s Cuba. Some of the stats cited included a high life expectancy, a high ration of doctors to people, a high rate of immunization for children.
I’m a libertarian and have a hard time believing that anything that good could come out of a tyranny. But I have no facts available to contradict the above. Also I’m willing to accept that there’s more to success than type of government. Also, maybe there are times when free markets don’t work as well.
So the question is: How good is health care in Cuba these days?
I can’t find any cite that supports this claim. The most recent numbers I can find are approx 69 years for men, 76 for women, which is lower than in the USA.
I don’t think this comparison is quite what the OP is looking for. Even when the CPI (Communist Party India) or CPIM (Communist Party India Marxist) forms a state government, AFAIK, they’re always in a coalition. So, implementing a Cuba-style economic policy is simply not feasible. Furthermore, India doesn’t really have a shared-sovereignity system the way the US does, so economic policy is really largely controlled by the central government (barring a few notable exceptions). India is certainly socialist, but I don’t believe there’s a Cuba-style communism being practiced in Kerala. By this, I mean notable features of a purely command economy (such as property collectivization, elimination of private industry, etc) aren’t present.
As to the OP, it’s very clear that command economies can accomplish impressive things in relatively short amounts of time (such as the rapid industrialization of China, USSR). What’s not so clear is if this type of economy is sustainable, and history seems to indicate that it’s not. Economics isn’t my really my bag, though, so I’ll let someone else field this in more depth.
I’m not an expert, but I’ll offer a few ideas that might have something to do with the subject.
Do Cubans have access to expensive medical treatment such as chemotherapy? How much of their medical budget comes from foreign aid and charity donations? Are doctors in Cuba trained as effectively as ones in free market societies? If so, where are they trained? Cuban universities might be a joke when compared to modern universities in free market societies, so an effective argument may be that the Cuban medical system really owes its success to the advancement and charity of free market societies.
There are probably a lot more factors that contribute to the apparent success of Cuba’s medical system. Their socialist government is almost certainly not a positive factor, but there are more important things to consider than type of government when measuring things like this.
I remember reading a news article about an American biotech company funding research into a hepatitus vaccine in Cuba. It was part of a story about how the embargo was being relaxed on things like medical technology research. Is this the same drug being referred to in the article you linked?
I don’t know what you read. Might it have been the meningitis vaccine licensed by GlaxoSmithKline? They had to get US approval for that. I don’t know of another example of the US embargo being relaxed re biotech.
Buried in the middle here are some recent Kerala life expectancies, which are 71.8 for rural areas and 79.8 for urban areas. I could not the all over statistic which was reported in The Hindu Thiruvananthapuram edition in mid-July stating that Kerala’s life expectancy had surpassed- for the moment at least- the US’s. Here are some (somewhat outdated)Kerala statistics that illustrate just how much farther Kerala comes in quality-of-life issues compared to the rest of India. India is apparently not even better off than Botswana and yet this one poor state (with a per capita income of $485.00) is leading the way in regards to birth rate, literacy, life expetantcy, women’s issues and vaccination rates. It’d be foolish to disregard factors like the influence of Gulf Oil wealth, but it’s hard not to conclude that this state where hammer-and-sickle flags fly in the town squares and old men sit in reading rooms painted with Che Guevara is doing something right.
Here is a handy chart for comparing health statistics by region. I’d rather be in Cuba than a lot of places. Cuba is the medical powerhouse for much of Central and South America. It’s also doing pretty well on the literacy front.
I don’t think this is as much a ringing endorcement for totalitarianism/communism as much as it should be a wake-up call for America. Right now, as an uninsured American citizen, I have less access to health care than a Cuban peasant. Governments can handle health care effectively without stifling progress and it is possible and desireable to distribute access to health care fairly among your citizens. The free market has failed us in the area of health care. It’s time to start looking for solutions.
I think Cuba spends quite some money with healthcare… and I’m glad for them that it works. The problem is the rest of the system that doesn’t work ! Just spotlighting the better part doesn’t mean the system is good overall.
I’m a libertarian as well… and it sure is a fine line what government can do better and what private enterprise can do better. Cuba is a skewed example…
Little doubt that I’d have better health care in Cuba than the US. Seriously, the only health care access I have in the US is to go to an emergency room, and after getting health care there throw away the bill, and know I am too poor to sue. Recently I had a nasty infection of my eyelid, and after researching the symptoms on the Internet guessed it was a garden variety hordeola. My boss after noticing it even asked if it was infectious? I answered “no”, and after spouting a lot of medical jargon accepted the answer.
Added: I was right. Nature healed. Personally, I was worried that this might be something life threatening, like cancer. Nice thing based on the medical websites I was just able to “digitally express” this (In layman’s language, squeeze out the puss), and I was healed. Thank goddess while I can’t afford medical care, I have Internet access.
A few years back, Paul Harvey - a very conservative news commentator at ABC - liked to talk of several cases of Cuban Americans (who are no friends of Castro) that were going back to Cuba to get prompt and affordable health care. Even Paul Harvey sees that the USA can do better regarding the irrational health care that we have.