Hacker News Reader

Comment by vo2maxer | Hacker News Reader

Before all this fawning over Cuba’s health care system, consider that they use their physicians abroad as revenue streams and propaganda to show the world how high their physicians per capita is. Those Cuban physicians are heavily restricted in what they are allowed to do [0]. Unless you have lived under a dictatorship as I did, you naively assume honesty and integrity from Cuba’s version of their “great” health care system. Ask the many Cubans in exile, how often they have to send life saving medication to their families on the island.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-cub...

View on HN

Cuban healthcare is the left-wing version of "Mussolini made the trains run on time." Both are just idealizing the concept of a benevolent dictatorship ostensibly getting one thing right and ignoring all their other human rights violations.

Not comparable. You are making some bold assumptions that people in the comments are using Cuba’s successful healthcare system as an excuse to justify the communist regime in Cuba. I see no such things. I see people simply pointing out that Cuba has a successful healthcare system irrelevant of the fact of how their government runs their country.

The parable of Mussolini and the trains running on time was however such justification. I.e. “Mussolini’s fascist regime can be excused by the fact that he got the trains running on time”. Some people might be of the opinion that “Cuba’s authoritarian government can be excused by the fact that their healthcare system is successful“, but that is not the sentiment I’m getting from the posts here. Particularly not from your GP.

Not in the comments here, but it is, in fact, a fairly common sentiment on the American fringe left (to which I belong myself, so I see it a lot in private conversations).

> Ask the many Cubans in exile, how often they have to send life saving medication to their families on the island.

Well, not to excuse the dictatorship in Cuba, but there is the small issue with embargo and trade restrictions the US places on that particular one. Theoretically, medicine is exempt, but in practice it isn't: https://medicc.org/ns/documents/The_impact_of_the_U.S._Embar...

The Castro brothers and their lackeys have used the embargo to explain away every disastrous strategic plan they’ve concocted over the last 60+ years: Es el bloqueo. El bloqueo.

Furthermore, take a look at the many countries which have trade with Cuba [0]. Their problem is mostly self-created through their monetary policy and the severe restrictions entrepreneurial Cubans face. The Castrista government must have its hands on every little thing that generates money. The slightest deviation from the party line results in significant punishment including prison.

[0] https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/isdb_results/factsheets/country...

Do you expect Cuba to produce literally every single drug in the world? No? Then you cannot ad-hominem the blocus away.

> Before all this fawning over Cuba’s health care system, consider that they use their physicians abroad as revenue streams and propaganda to show the world how high their physicians per capita is.

So a bit like the US having their military all over the planet to show the world how high their military spending per capita is?

> Ask the many Cubans in exile, how often they have to send life saving medication to their families on the island.

No offense, but people living in exile from regimes they disagree with, are very likely not exactly the most unbiased people on the issue, often having a lot of emotional baggage on the topic.

Case in point: One could also ask the many Cubans not in exile about their views and opinions. Why shouldn't those matter also?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com