| I had communist leaning political sentiment in my youth, and traveled to Cuba in my early 20's. You could tell the country (and Havana in particular) had once been stunning. I was horrified by what I saw; just how broken the infrastructure was, how poor and destitute the people were. The quality of food was poor, the country dirty, access to basic energy needs unmet. The cost of basic services high (i.e. $100 USD cab ride from airport to Havana). I spent a lot of time getting to know locals and understanding what life looked like. Ration books for food, suppression of speech and behavior/associations. At the time, I was a mad keen surfer and met a few locals who showed me their hand-made boards, sourced from scrap and supplies stolen from their jobs. The state at the time viewed it as a non-sanctioned activity, and so no resources were approved for it. That experience for me was certainly the straw that broke the camels back in terms of sympathy for communist-leaning ideologies. I hope the Cuban people break free of state tyranny. |
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| ▲ | pharos92 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's a horrific price to pay for the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Personally I look to Scandinavia for the ideal model. High economic freedom & mobile capital, excellent healthcare & public services, high degree of social rights & liberties. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | The Scandinavian economic model has certain positives but it's hardly ideal. Collapsing population demographics, high immigration rates, and the need to increase military spending are creating a lot of pressure. But more importantly there is a severe lack of economic dynamism: in terms of major technology companies they basically have Spotify, Ericsson, and that's it. So long term they risk being left behind by the world economy, and reduced to the status of vassal states. |
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| ▲ | PaulHoule 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Compared to many places in Latin America, yes, but that’s not a high standard. | | |
| ▲ | cogman10 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Compared to the US. While not uncontested (they are accused of falsifying data), cuba posts better infant mortality rates. A lot of the medical issues in Cuba aren't related to the healthcare system but rather to trade embargos. It's a small miracle they do as well as they do given the constraints of being an island nation. The reason for their success on a shoestring budget is administrative competence. They have a large number of clinics (rather than big hospital complexes) and education in medicine starts at those clinics. Future doctors work and are educated in medicine moving up into specialties. It's a little like making everyone that wants to practice medicine start as a orderly in a family medicine clinic. IMO, this is superior to the US system of requiring several years of schooling before ever interacting with patients. And if you know an old nurse, you'll know they often do know a lot more than new doctors. | | |
| ▲ | charlescearl 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | This amidst an unrelenting united states “embargo” - in another world this embargo would be called the crime against humanity that it is. I often think of this Logic article on Cuban information retrieval design. “ Informatics of the Oppressed”, by Rodrigo Ochigame https://logicmag.io/care/informatics-of-the-oppressed/ | | |
| ▲ | nradov 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't think you understand what an embargo is. The USA isn't blockading Cuba; they're free to trade with other countries like Venezuela or whatever. International trade requires the consent of both parties, and there's no moral or legal obligation to trade with a hostile foreign power (or allow our financial systems to be used to facilitate such trade). The embargo would likely end soon if the Cuban government takes basic, simple steps like introducing open multiparty democracy, free market capitalism, and freedom for political prisoners. These steps would obviously benefit all Cubans so there's no possible reason to delay making those changes regardless of their impact on international trade. | | |
| ▲ | cogman10 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US enforces the embargo by cutting trade with any country doing trade with Cuba. It's not just a simple embargo between the US and Cuba, it's one that forces a country/company to make the decision "trade with Cuba or trade with the US". | | |
| ▲ | nradov 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, exactly. Countries are free to make that choice. They can't have their cake and eat it, too. | | |
| ▲ | Tadpole9181 38 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > The US isn't blockading Cuba That's what you said, but it is a just a coy semantic game by any real interpretation. The US took extra measures and went out of there way to strong arm any potential trade partners. No sane or responsible nation would give up trade with the US and major parts of it's hemisphere of influence (Europe, Japan, Korea, etc) to access an island with nothing to offer in an inconvenient place. The US, out of spite, demolished the Cuban economy and then spent decades beating the corpse for good measure long after the fight was over or justified. Last I checked, they basically only got access to meaningful trade from Venezuela and China for a few decades, right? |
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| ▲ | mensetmanusman 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How do you define better? Cost? The U.S. leads in advanced diagnostics (MRI, CT scans), surgical techniques, pharmaceuticals, and access to the latest therapies. (Cuban hospitals often lack basic supplies, equipment, and medications.) Care?
Patients in Cuba often face rationing and shortages of drugs, even common antibiotics or painkillers. The U.S. has issues with affordability but generally ensures availability once in the system. Doctors?
Cuba trains many doctors, but the government sends them abroad for revenue, leaving gaps in domestic care. Advanced treatments?
The U.S. is the global leader in pharmaceutical development, medical devices, and innovation. “better” might imply higher quality of care and outcomes for complex conditions, where the U.S. clearly outperforms. |
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| ▲ | pharos92 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They still have the freedom to trade with many countries (China, Russia, Iran etc). China alone would meet the majority of their import needs. Cuba in reality produces very little goods by way of quantity and quality. | | |
| ▲ | Tiktaalik 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Trade has to go both ways. Maybe China can trade with Cuba but doesn't need sugar. Maybe countries that badly would want Cuban sugar aren't allowed to trade with Cuba. etc. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | China needs sugar and is allowed to trade with Cuba. They import about $3B of sugar every year, mostly from Brazil. Most likely Cuba just isn't cost competitive: Communists have never managed to get the basics of agriculture right. |
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| ▲ | nradov 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The embargo certainly isn't forcing Communists to suppress free speech or hold political prisoners. | | |
| ▲ | Tiktaalik 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | yes sure but that's off topic. The parent wasn't talking about that, they were talking about the quality of the food being poor, electricity infrastructure bad etc. That stuff is impacted by being severely restricted from trade. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Those things are inextricably linked. If Cuba abandoned Communism then they would have plenty of food, even if the US trade embargo remained in place. |
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