6/19/07
The noisy banter over
health care in Cuba and the old USSR have been served up to the interested, and
uninterested, like a plump pig on a platinum platter with supporting apple and
pineapple sauce, as a sterling example of what Marxism can do for their people.
This is so wonderful. But is it? We now know that the Russian medical system
was limited to the ‘masses’ with very limited services and procedures and that
when serious or moderate medical care was indicated, the Politburo and its
hangers-on flew to Switzerland for help. Proper leftist propaganda efforts
demand, at least in theory, that at least some superior social or economic
attribute be hailed in Marxist governments so as to legitimize at least some
modicum of progressive success. Otherwise, the have nothing to report except
failure, and that is all they have every time we look closely. How many times
in Africa now? 150??
According to the New
York Times we have an opportunity to look at the numbers on healthcare and ask
some questions from this startling comment:
How could a poor
developing country — where annual health care spending averages just $230 a
person compared with $6,096 in the United States — come anywhere near
matching the richest country in the world? [1]
The answer follows:
According to the CIA with data from 2006, we find that the per capita GDP is
$4,000 and the gross GDP is $40 billion and the population is thought to be
11,394,043 (July 2007 est.),which gives $3,511, which is close to $4,000.[2] Fine.
A precise accounting for the GDP in terms of medical expenditures depends on
the income from Venezuela in the form of oil and the fact that this
is paid for by trading health care workers:
Since late 2000, Venezuela has
been providing Cuba oil on preferential terms, and it currently
supplies about 98,000 barrels per day of petroleum products. Cuba has been
paying for the oil, in part, with the services of Cuban personnel, including
some 20,000 medical professionals.[3]
The NYT Article [ref 1
below] skirts around the issue by asking some expert who mumbles about
lifestyles being simpler with more exercise and abortions, which tend to
improve the life expectancy. Apparently, the lack of cars, electricity and
other shortages are in some way beneficial to the population because they
enhance health. Food rationing and electrical blackouts were not mentioned. Can
you really practice medicine in the dark? Reasons [read phony examples] like
this are given to support the notion that Castro has a first class education
system and marvelous healthcare system.
The ‘authority’ from the
article closes this story with the following quote:
“I know Americans tend
to be skeptical,” he said, “but health and education are two achievements of
the Cuban revolution, and they deserve some credit despite the government’s poor
record on human rights.”[4]
The USSR had both of
these wonderful attributes, but it seems their ‘education’ system was limited
to teaching Russian language, revolutionary history and preaching Marxist
economics, something that robbed the Russians of their ability to participate
in capitalism after 1989. They were all miseducated. Their currency, savings
accounts, health care system and more went crashing down leaving poverty, crime
and failure in the wake.
We cannot track,
precisely, the money devoted to health care, but we can ask if Cuba uses
modern medicine, which rests, for most part, on clinical diagnostics. In the
US, at least during the Hillary Care Scares, diagnostics cost about 4% of the
total bill and pills about 15%, the rest going to admin, surgery, hospital care
and such So, we could ask a simple question:
Does Cuba have
sufficient blood tests for its citizens?
What is the average cost
of a blood test panel in the US??
Here is a website that
gives prices with a fixed $15 for draws and a few examples of the cost of
specific blood tests:
|
AIDS (HIV SCREEN)
|
35.00
|
|
ALBUMIN - SERUM
|
37.50
|
|
ALDOLASE
|
38.50
|
|
ALDOSTERONE
|
150.00
|
|
BILIRUBIN - DIRECT
|
44.45
|
|
BLOOD CULTURE-SENSITIVITY
|
125.00
|
|
BLOOD TYPE (ABO & RH TYPE)-
vital to know in case of an accident and you need blood!
|
20.00
|
|
BLOOD UREA NITROGEN (BUN)
|
37.50
|
|
CHOLESTEROL - TOTAL
|
15.00
|
|
CHOLINESTERASE- PRESENCE/LEVEL OF
|
117.50
|
|
CORTISOL FREE
|
117.50
|
|
CORTISOL AM
|
117.50
|
|
CORTISOL -24HR URINE
|
268.85
|
|
CORTISOL PM
|
117.50
|
|
CRP-High Sensitivity (C-REACTIVE
PROTEIN ) CLICK HERE for details on this blood test.
|
28.50
|
|
FERRITIN
|
37.50
|
|
FIBRINOGEN
|
57.50
|
|
FOLATES
|
117.50
|
|
FSH
|
147.50
|
|
POTASSIUM
|
37.50
|
|
PREGNANCY / EARLY PREGNANCY
|
30.00
|
|
PROGESTERONE
|
37.50
|
|
PREGNENOLONE
|
175.00
|
|
PRENATAL SCREEN -
|
195.00
|
|
PROLACTIN
|
147.50
|
|
PSA FREE AND TOTAL
|
112.50
|
|
PTH
|
257.50
|
|
GLUCOSE, FASTING (SERUM)
|
15.00
|
|
HDL CHOLESTEROL
|
10.00
|
|
HEPATITIS B ANTIBODY (AB) CORE IGM
|
247.50
|
|
HEPATITIS B ANTIBODY (AB) CORE
TOTAL
|
88.75
|
|
HEPATITIS B AB BE
|
247.50
|
|
HEPATITIS B AB CORE
|
87.50
|
|
HEPATITIS B AG BE
|
247.50
|
|
HEPATITIS B SURF. ANTIGEN (HAA)
|
35.00
|
|
HEPATITIS B SURFACE ANTIBODY
|
35.00
|
|
HEPATITIS B SURFACE ANTIBODY -
QUANTITATIVE
|
88.75
|
|
HEPATITIS C
|
45.00
|
|
HEPATITIS C CONFIRMATION
|
400.00
|
Ref [5]
And this list goes on
and on for 400+ tests. I get a test annually that includes cholesterol,
glucose, PSA and some others that runs $300-400. Notice that if you pick three
or four clinical tests to perform from this list, the average Cuban HC expense
of $230 is dwarfed! Just a few average tests will consume all the money per
citizen. So, how do they do this?
How is this possible?
For simple stuff like Albumin – Serum, glucose,
sodium, potassium and such the cost might be lower, but infectious diseases
like Hepatitis A, B, C, D are very expensive. Indeed, even on Hep C with a
Viral Load test would run $800 or more. No Hep C tests in Cuba?
Let us give Castro the benefit of the doubt and
assume that the US costs are 5-10X higher than Cuba can do
and wonder what the costs are. We quickly see that for clinical diagnostics,
alone, the cost of comprehensive tests to cover the population swamps the Cuban
resources. This, is limited to diagnostics alone. What about treatments?
Now ,what if we ask about MRIs? Here is a place
that will offer” Full Price MRI for $380-$560 and Full Price CT Scan for
$270-$370; Minimum Full Body CT Scan (chest, abdomen, pelvis) is $575 while
Maximum Full Body CT Scan (chest, abdomen, pelvis, head, neck) is $825”[6]
What about pills? What
do Cubans pay for Lipator, Alleve or antibiotics? Do they have Tylenol??
We haven’t even wondered
about emergency room supplies, tissue culture, incubators, oxygen, needles,
blood bags and testing and such. The money is already shot.
The ugly facts are that Cuba cannot
offer anything substantial for their citizens for a crummy $230. We
begin to suspect that there is no effective HC in Cuba when we learn,
from the NYT, that Cuban surgeons actually botched the recent operation on
Fidel and Spanish surgeons had to be flown across the pond to save Fidel. [7] Real
neat medical training we expect.
The strutting and
crowing about the health system of Castro’s Cuba is a farce, but an
essential element of propaganda. Lies must be lied and tall tales must be told
to continue on with fables about Marxism. We have seen 100,000,000 people die from Communism since 1917 and we
still have dedicated cadres trying to attach some modicum of legitimacy to the
Marxist systems in spite of the failures. It satisfies the claim of the NYT and
other leftists that if all the Cubans are entitled to visit a single grass
shack in an alley in Havana hosted by political activists offering political
messages and an aspirin pill for those who moan nosily. And, that is low cost,
for sure.
The far left, encouraged
and sponsored by the New York Times, must continue to push this preposterous propaganda in our faces
to patch up their decaying political systems. They told us lies before and now
must keep up the phony baloney.
Castro is a murdering
dictator and the liberals stoop to lying about his works it seems. It would
have been more poignant if Castro had not survived his operation apparently
bungled by his own trained ‘doctors’ instead of waxing frantic and getting help
abroad.
Is there some
left-liberal out there who can tell us about clinical tests and drugs in Cuba and
supply costs and the number of persons who benefit??
I didn’t think so.
Propaganda cannot be a talking point and also stand tests for analysis as it is
hollow and phony and never based on truth.
rycK
[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/weekinreview/27depalma.html?ex=1182398400&en=637f5dcafb2c480b&ei=5070. See alsohttp://www.nfam.org/2004yearendnewsletter_cuba.html,
which covers much of the same notions.
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