A 'Great Leap Forward' for Cuban healthcare

By Ralph Alter

Just in time to tweak the noses of Americans still resisting the call to nationalized health care, those wily Fidelistas have announced the newest benefit offered in Cuba's government-run health care program: Free penile implants.

AFP reports:

"Men in seven Cuban provinces will be eligible for the....the silicon and silver penis implants. (U)rologist Juan Carlos Yip boasted (that the procedure) was normally "exclusive to first world countries and at a high cost.

This is just another reason for guys like Michael Moore to tout the Cuban health care system as the model for Americans to follow. Never mind that the average Cuban submitting to the procedure will be entrusting the care and modification of his manhood to a surgeon who most likely earns about 15 to 20 dollars per month.

According to Wikpedia:

"Medical professionals are not paid high salaries by international standards. In 2002 the mean monthly salary was 261 pesos, 1.5 times the national mean.^[56] A doctor's salary in the late 1990s was equivalent to about US $15-20 per month in purchasing power. Therefore, many prefer to work in different occupations, generally in the lucrative tourist industry (e.g. taxi drivers), where earnings can be 50 to 60 times more.

So we might expect that the average Cuban implantee may end up doing his follow-up care in the back seat of a '57 Chevy modified into a taxicab.

Rest assured that the iron-fisted Castro government will spin this latest health care wrinkle into a success story with the help of useful idiots like Mr. Moore. After all, his cinematic ode to the wonders of the Cuban health care system failed to disclose that

""..Cuba has two (health systems): one is for party officials and foreigners like those Mr. Moore brought to Havana. "It is as good as this one here, with all the resources, the best doctors, the best medicines, and nobody pays a cent," he said.

But for the 11 million ordinary Cubans, hospitals are often ill equipped and patients "have to bring their own food, soap, sheets - they have to bring everything." (In addition)...up to 20,000 Cuban doctors may be working in Venezuela, creating a shortage in Cuba.

Don't doubt the ability of the Castros and their journalistic party organ, Granma to thrust this implant program into the most favorable possible light. After all, this is the same enlightened system that "solved" their potential HIV-AIDS epidemic with forced testing and quarantines:

"Cuba compulsorily tested thousands of its citizens for HIV. Those who tested positive were taken to Los Cocos and were not allowed to leave." (ibid Wiki)

This same shameless government hailed the benefits of the malnutrition caused by the famine that followed the elimination of Soviet aid in the early 1990's:

"Malnutrition created epidemics, but it had positive effects too. Manuel Franco describes the Special Period as "the first, and probably the only, natural experiment, born of unfortunate circumstances, where large effects on diabetes, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality have been related to sustained population-wide weight loss as a result of increased physical activity and reduced caloric intake."

Sounds like a press release from the euphimizers in the Obama administration, doesn't it? Surprisingly, Michael Moore didn't volunteer for this particular Cuban health care innovation. Surely he will weigh in on the free Cuban penile implants.