"Sicko" Presents False View of Cuba's Health System
"Sicko" Presents False View of Cuba's Health System
by Ryan Balis
Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore claims his latest documentary, "Sicko," will "rip the band-aid off America's health care industry,"1 which Moore sees as wrongfully dominated by private drug companies and profit-seeking HMOs.
In part of "Sicko," released June 29, Moore takes a group of ill 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba for health treatment.2 Though most of the workers on Moore's two-week sojourn in March 2007 were insured,3 Moore's motive in going to Cuba is to showcase the supposed superiority of the communist country's "free" national health care and to compare this to "the misery people are put through on a daily basis by our profit-based system" in the U.S.4 (The Department of Treasury has opened an investigation into whether Moore violated the U.S.'s longstanding embargo of Cuba.)5
As with Moore's previous documentaries, "Sicko" provides a brash handling of public policy disputes. The film's underlying push is to, in Moore's words, "ignite a fire for free, universal health care."6 When this premise is examined, the rosy myth of socialized medicine's achievement in Cuba is crushed.
Cuba's Heath Care System: The Reality
Under the Cuban government's health care monopoly, the state assumes complete control. Private, non-governmental health facilities, where ailing citizens could buy treatment, are illegal.7 As a result, average Cubans suffer long waits at government hospitals, while many services and technologies are available only to the Cuban party elite and foreign "health tourists" who pay with hard currency. Moreover, access to such rudimentary medicines as antibiotics and Aspirin can be limited, and there are reports that citizens excluded from the foreign-only hospitals often must bring their own bed sheets and blankets while in care.8
Despite the reality, Cuba's universal health system continues to be glorified. "Defenders of Cuba's communist government cite universal health care and education as 'gains of the revolution,' claiming the average Cuban is far better off today than under the dictatorship of Fulgencia Batista," wrote Tom Carter of the Washington Times.9 Moreover, "The health care system is often touted by many analysts as one of the Castro government's greatest achievements," says an updated 2002 State Department report, which rejects the notion that Cuba's health conditions have significantly improved for most Cuban citizens since 1958.10
When examining the woeful reality of health care in Cuba, Moore's and other liberals' drive to establish a 'socially equitable,' centrally-planned medical system in America should be rejected as a foolish proposal. Though state-sponsored health care is trumpeted in Cuba as a basic human right achieved by the revolution, according to many reports, including those by Cuban defectors, universal availability of and accessibility to top quality care are fantasies.
Below is a snapshot of reports from those who have witnessed Cuba's health care system up front. They serve notice of the horrors of socialized medicine.
https://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA55...alth_Care.html
