[Unthinking Majority]

Cuban doctors are sent to many nations. But the ones who stay in Mexico are very common UM.

I find them in Farmacias Similares consultation rooms all the time.

BTW, Mexico is a nation with universal health care and they have long waiting lines too for the free doctors.

But they have free health care. What is the excuse now for the USA? If Mexico the supposedly inferior nation with the drug kingpins and corrupt on the take cops and politicians can guarantee universal health care to all Mexican citizens and many older folks? Why can't the USA do the same? because GREED. because CAPITALISM is great and have to bankrupt a lot of people in order to take advantage of the desperation of the ill in a nation of freedom. Lol. Please.

I do not support the US system of healthcare.

Socialism in Medicine is a human right. Fight for it or believe stupid lies for the rest of your life as you lie dying in some ambulance scared about being billed $200,000 for some bacterial superbug eating away at your flesh that no longer responds to anti biotics and you face foreclosure on your house due to unpaid medical bills, because you needed the extra $2000 a month to pay bills instead of private health care insurance premiums in the USA.
...
Did you get that memo too or were the false lies about Cuba and Mexico and Puerto Rico your first source of information? Do not trust the mainstream bullshit media. They never report progress in other societies if their own has not improved in that area and the powerful who are being greedy and intransigent want it COVERED UP.

I haven't mentioned one word about Mexico. If you're going to accuse me of believing "lies" then please list the lies i have mentioned. Doctors are slaves in Cuba, they can't move out of Cuba without government consent, and I've posted the link regarding the policy. They're not allowed to leave because if they could many would. Many Cuban doctors abroad do a lot of good, they also are one of Cuba's biggest exports and make the country a ton of money.

I do believe healthcare is a right. You're assuming many positions i've never stated so please refrain from putting words in my mouth and creating strawmen. All I am doing is mentioning that socialized medicine isn't perfect. And it may work fairly well in Europe because they all share similar systems. In Canada it's mismanaged, you can't find a family doctor and waits for the ER and MRIs and mental health and many surgeries are long because of the reasons i've mentioned, and also because governments during COVID didn't give needed raises for nurses and doctors so many decided to quit or retire than work through it. Many have fled to the US over the decades for better pay. So if you want socialized medicine, you have to fund it adequately, otherwise it becomes a human rights issue because citizens don't have any other option but leave the country and pay out of pocket somewhere else. "Free" healthcare isn't great if there's no healthcare to be provided.

[Truth To Power]

I do believe healthcare is a right.

It's not. We only have rights to the things we would have if others did not deprive us of them: mainly life, liberty, and property in the fruits of our labor. Healthcare, education, food, housing, etc. are not rights because they are not things we would otherwise have; someone else has to provide them. However, in the case of healthcare, education, public safety, water supply and transportation infrastructure, and a few other goods and services, there are market failure conditions in place that may make it a matter of prudent public policy to provide them for people either free or at a price far below the free market price.

All I am doing is mentioning that socialized medicine isn't perfect. And it may work fairly well in Europe because they all share similar systems. In Canada it's mismanaged, you can't find a family doctor and waits for the ER and MRIs and mental health and many surgeries are long because of the reasons i've mentioned, and also because governments during COVID didn't give needed raises for nurses and doctors so many decided to quit or retire than work through it.

I remember many years ago reading that the Canadian government had decided to reduce the number of available spaces in Canadian medical schools to keep doctors' incomes up. That has always struck me as a remarkably vicious, despicable, and evil public policy decision.

Many have fled to the US over the decades for better pay. So if you want socialized medicine, you have to fund it adequately, otherwise it becomes a human rights issue because citizens don't have any other option but leave the country and pay out of pocket somewhere else. "Free" healthcare isn't great if there's no healthcare to be provided.

Canada is largely infected by the American medico-rentier complex partly because it is pretty easy for Canadian medical professionals to go south for more money and partly because the monopoly rent-seeking model for drugs and other treatment products is so pervasive. It's certainly evil and insane that governments, especially the US government, place all sorts of monopolistic restrictions on the supply of medical care, increasing its price by an order of magnitude above the free market level, and then tell people to pay for their own medical care in the "free market."

[QatzelOk]

It's not...

Interesting.

In the First Nations cultures, "taking care of the sick" was the primary priority of everyone, and the chiefs were usually versed in medicine (treating illnesses).

In cultures where the government (or king, or chief, or occupying power) does NOT take care of the sick, the people typically show zero loyalty to this entity, as this entity (non-caring government) is parasitic and not responsive to the community's basic needs.

In this case, the government has to rule over the people using fear (covid, 911, wars of genocide, etc.)

[KurtFF8]

I think we need to give a car to every man woman and child on the planet.

That's not possible for many reasons, on top of the fact that the environment couldn't sustain it.

[Rancid]

That's not possible for many reasons, on top of the fact that the environment couldn't sustain it.

That was sarcasm.

[JohnRawls]

Cuba Gini/Inequality is somewhere between 0.4 and 0.45 how come its worse than US and puts Cuba in the bottom 100 of the world? What happened to all the equality? While almost all liberal democracies and all old democracies are way better on the gini index even US

[late]

It's not.

That's a decision countries have to make.

Common sense should tell you that.

Not only that, countries with robust national health care systems have better health stats than us. Which goes to show that, if you're a rich country, you don't have to act like a poor country. Although smart poor countries, like Costa Rica, have national health care systems that provide excellent bang for the buck.

You know, in the real world..

[Truth To Power]

That's a decision countries have to make.

Common sense should tell you that.

As I said, there is a difference between what people get from their community via prudent public policy choices and their rights. If someone else has to provide it, it's not a right.

[late]

As I said, there is a difference between what people get from their community via prudent public policy choices and their rights. If someone else has to provide it, it's not a right.

2. a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way.

If a country decides everyone is entitled, it becomes a right.

You have a really limited relationship to reality..

[QatzelOk]

What happened to all the equality?

Wat0n didn't destroy Cuban equality by citing a flawed research paper by someone who couldn't have possibly known what the incomes of Cubans were.

Here is a real gini index for Canada: There are homeless people sleeping outside next to five-star hotels because the garage vents are warmer than the air (-16 yesterday).

So while some stay in five-star hotels or drive 100,000 dollar SUVS here, we have doubled our homeless population.

Cuba doesn't have a homeless population, and its entire population has access to housing, medicine, education, and food banks. So its real GINI index is much better than the number wat0n pulled out of his ass.

But thanks for running with false data. It demonstrates your general lack of rigor.

"Dumb people can be easily fooled into supporting their own oppression" is what I'm hearing from you and wat0n's fake stats.

[wat0n]

It's not my fault you don't like the estimates provided by Cuban researchers themselves, working in Cuba, @QatzelOk

Maybe the Cuban government itself could publish some statistics and share the microdata but it doesn't.

[Truth To Power]

2. a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way.

That is an equivocation fallacy. Legal rights are not relevant to this discussion, as they can be whatever some gang of crooks, toadies, demagogues and con men in a legislature somewhere decide they are.

If a country decides everyone is entitled, it becomes a right.

Like the right to forcibly enslave others?

You have a really limited relationship to reality.

[late]

That is an equivocation fallacy.

Legal rights are not relevant to this discussion, as they can be whatever some gang of crooks, toadies, demagogues and con men in a legislature somewhere decide they are.

Like the right to forcibly enslave others?

You have a really limited relationship to reality.

You are appear to be using a definition of rights based on Enlightenment notions of inalienable rights...

It is worth remembering that the Enlightenment was the product of men. That the norms and laws it inspired were laid down by men. That they left open the ability to "make a more perfect Union". Which could have the effect of expanding rights.

Perhaps there is something I missed.

But if there is, you need to write a detailed explanation as to why... I seriously doubt you have the chops, or an underlying basis for your position. But thanks for the entertainment, I don't get to use intellectual history as much as I'd like.

[QatzelOk]

Maybe the Cuban government itself could publish some statistics and share the microdata but it doesn't...

It doesn't, so we can't use these stats to prove anything.

It's not my fault you don't like the estimates provided by Cuban researchers themselves, working in Cuba...

I don't like unprovable stats that are printed without any legitimacy because... this is the strategy of propaganda, and capitalism invests billions in this kind of lying. You should be ashamed for regurgitating a stat that some gold-seeker pulled out of their ass.


For an alternative to the not-available Gini index for Cuba, I would recommend comparing Shit-maps of San Francisco and Havana.


San Francisco





The lack of brown dots on the Havana map tells you all you need to know about the nature of Cuban equality. And it's the kind of thing that even a dumb tourist like me can research with his nose.

[wat0n]

So we should trust your worthless feelings instead, heh @QatzelOk?

[QatzelOk]

So we should trust your worthless feelings instead, heh @QatzelOk?

As I said, "smell" was more important for this research than "feelings." So it's hard evidence (or semi-soft evidence depending on diet).

Now those brown dots on "America's favorite city" mean a lot more than shit. San Francisco is not as safe or pleasant a city as Havana, despite consuming 20 times the resources per capita.

[wat0n]

San Francisco is hardly "America's favorite city"

[Rancid]

San Francisco is great. Have any of you actually been there?

[QatzelOk]

San Francisco is great. Have any of you actually been there?

Yes I have. As a tourist.

Bought pot from one of the thousands of homeless people living in Golden Gate park. Avoided biking in the city because car-death is only a distraction away...

Saw no children playing in the central city. People tend to go home after work (in their cars) so there isn't much happening socially... other than tourists taking pictures of a winding road to nowhere.

What I learned visiting San Francisco is that American cities are dull, dangerous, and depressing... despite an incredible level of consumption.

And then there are all the little brown piles of "gini index" that you have to avoid while walking.

[Rancid]

Yes I have. As a tourist.

Bought pot from one of the thousands of homeless people living in Golden Gate park. Avoided biking in the city because car-death is only a distraction away...

Saw no children playing in the central city. People tend to go home after work (in their cars) so there isn't much happening socially... other than tourists taking pictures of a winding road to nowhere.

What I learned visiting San Francisco is that American cities are dull, dangerous, and depressing... despite an incredible level of consumption.

And then there are all the little brown piles of "gini index" that you have to avoid while walking.

Aside from buying pot from a homeless dude. The rest doesn't match up with my experience.