Jueco2005, Please answer the medical question. I can only answer it from the perspective of the Soviet Union. But some really fat and sloppy filmmakers in America think the medical system offered Americans for pay is the same one offered Cubans. Please set these monkey straight.
Obviously....no one is going to come in and say they want to be their Dictator and live like kings while the population have rolling black outs and get thrown in jail for eating meat... they first come in with everyone is equal and then they slowly apply the vaseline...
In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women. is this an accurate statement?
Hasn't that always been true, everywhere? Power... Money. A lot of either or a mix of both... will make their little ginies tingle.
It was great from 1959 to 1995. Today it is no different from medical care in Congo or Haiti. During its glorious period it provided all Cubans with decent and adequate health care, it was unsustainable without subsidies and massive debt from the Soviet Union. I learned when I got to Miami that Cuba owes Russia about 30 billion in military and health care spending. The most important thing about health care in Cuba was the human factor. Anyone who chooses to be a doctor or any other health care personnel does so for LOVE. Not for greed. Cubans love to help each other.
Healthcare, Education and Public Transportation were provided for free in Socialist Countries. But there was little variety of products I think. One one brand of icecream i.e. Vanilla, one brand of bread.......white bread that is it. Also huge inefficiencies in nearly every functioning department...........electricity fails several times a week, corruption and bribes every step of life like to just even get a license to drive renewed (for those few who had cars!). This from an American pal who visited Russia in 1994 on a government sponsored exchange trip. Socialism with lots of western flavor and ethics can work to some extent like in Canada, UK or France. But that is the maximum one should go in this direction. Soviet Bloc socialism was worth puking.
With money you only have the power to buy things (and women). Add a large and powerful government to that mix and you have the ability to buy coercive power. Why? Because for the political class, the power they hold is useless to them unless they monetize it by selling power to the highest bidder. behold, the special interest group and how Madoff was likely able to keep the SEC off his back. The founding fathers understood this and concocted a little known, almost completely ignored little document commonly known as the constitution which was supposed to limit the power of government so that there would be no power to buy. If we don't disregard it and supplant Rule of Law with government whim. ...for the greater good...of course.
We have a "both" in the US. Got to your doctor and get diagnosed. He has the best diagnostic equipment and the worst therapies... so after diagnosis you really hit the internet and the library and find out if there can be a diet cure or some odd therapy that works really well but the medical establishment doesn't like it...