Socialized Medicine No Utopia
In SiCKO, filmmaker Michael Moore portrayed Cuba as a utopia where socialized medicine provides high-quality health care on the cheap. According to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, the estimated 6,000 doctors who fled Cuba for the U.S. in the past six years do not agree.
It’s amazing that so few people challenged Michael Moore’s nonsense at the time the film was released.
Professor Milica Bookman, development economist and co-author of Medical Tourism in Developing Countries, used to believe Cuba had potential as a medical tourism destination. After visiting the island, she decided it could not provide the high quality medical care international patients would demand.
http://www.jeffschult.com/blog/2008/01/11/cuba-not-ready-for-prime-time/
I was privileged to be among the first to visit Cuba legally when restrictions were partially lifted in about 1995. We stayed at a tourist-oriented hotel. Prostitutes thronged the entrance. One who approached a travel companion of mine claimed she was a medical doctor. When he scoffed, she showed him her credentials! She said prostitution was the only way she could feed her family – her government salary was so low. I’ll never forget this.