Comments on the Myth of the World-Class Cuban Medical System

Michael Moore in Sicko, Jimmy Carter, Obama, and CNN, PBS, and ABC News reporters have all praised the Cuban medical system as one of the best in the world.  Most recently, Representative Keith Ellison, also Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee, has made the same claim. An article by Humberto Fontova addresses these evaluations of the Cuban Medical System with some interesting observations.

In summary of the most interesting of these:

• According to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, more than 75% of doctors with Cuban medical degrees cannot pass the U.S. licensing exam given by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates
• Most Cuba-certified cannot pass the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates exam for certification as physician assistants
• In 1958 before Cuba became a Communist regime, Cuba ranked 13th in the world in infant mortality.  Now, it is 43rd in the world, based on massive fraud in its reporting of infant mortality.  41.5% of pregnancies are ended with abortions, because any indication of a troubled birth results in an abortion, in order to keep the infant mortality rate low.  In addition, Cuban "doctors" are pressured to report the deaths of children younger than 1 year old as that of a child older than 1 year old.
• As in all Communist nations, the finer medical facilities so often pictured in propaganda reporting are not available to most people.

With all the calls for single-payer, a means of avoiding saying government-controlled, medical systems, we should remember every instance of incompetence or downright malignancy in examples of government-controlled medical systems.

The Most Naive People in America

The Pew Research Center conducted a poll released on 18 April 2010 based upon four surveys conducted from 11 March to 11 April of about 5,500 adults reached on land and cell phone lines.  22% of the people said they trust Washington almost always or most of the time.  Apparently, the most naive and gullible people in America are this 22% of the adult population!  Only 19% said they are basically content with the federal government.  So, only about one in five Americans are happy with the federal government.

Since the 1950s, there have been only two periods with similar levels of distrust.  From 1992 to 1995, the first term of Bill Clinton and following on the heels of the George H. W. Bush "read my lips" tax increases, those trusting Washington fell to 17%.  From 1978 to 1980, the last years of Jimmy Carter's administration, those retaining trust in Washington fell to a low of 25%.

Today's adults were mostly born between the Census' of 1920 and 1990.  Of course some adults born in that time-frame have died and are not included in the Pew poll.  To keep things simple, we will ignore that for the following calculation.  How many people have been born per minute on average in that time?  The answer is about 3.88 per minute.  If 22% of these people are suckers, then the old saying that a sucker is born every minute is nearly true, but Americans are a wee bit better than that.  Apparently about 0.85 suckers are born every minute.

About half the people said they wanted smaller government, which is fewer than those saying this in other recent surveys.  About 40% want government to provide more services.  The Pew Center does tend to produce results slightly more favorable to the left than many polls over the years, in my opinion.