Sicko, and reading Cuba’s pulse

Cuba works hard to jam American TV signals and keep out decadent Hollywood films. But it’s a good bet that Fidel Castro’s government...

Cuba works hard to jam American TV signals and keep out decadent Hollywood films. But it’s a good bet that Fidel Castro’s government will turn a blind eye to bootleg copies of Sicko, Michael Moore’s newest movie, if they show up on the streets of Havana.

Sicko, the talk of the Cannes Film Festival last week, savages the American health care system — and along the way extols Cuba’s system as the neatest thing since the white linen guayabera.

Moore transports a handful of sick Americans to Cuba for treatment in the course of the film, scheduled to open in the US in June, and he is apparently dumbfounded that they could get there what they couldn’t get in America.

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“There’s a reason Cubans live on average longer than we do,” he told Time magazine. “I’m not trumpeting Castro or his regime. I just want to say to fellow Americans. C’mon, we’re the United States. If they can do this, we can do it.”

But hold on. Do they do it? Live longer than, or even as long as, Americans do? How could a poor developing country, where annual health care spending averages just $230 a person compared with $6,096 in the US, come anywhere near matching the richest country in the world?

Statistics from WHO, the CIA and other sources all show that the people of Cuba and the US have about the same life expectancy—77 years, give or take a few months — while infant mortality in Cuba is significantly lower than in the US.

A professor emeritus of economics at the University of Pittsburgh, said statistics also show that Cuba has a high rate of abortion, which can lower infant mortality rates and improve life expectancy figures.

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Dr Robert N Butler, president of the International Longevity Center in New York and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author on aging, has travelled to Cuba to see firsthand how doctors are trained. He said a reason that some health standards in Cuba approach the high American level is that the Cuban system emphasises early intervention. Clinic visits are free, and the focus is on preventing the disease.

Butler said some of Cuba’s shortcomings may actually improve its health profile.

There could be one great leveler for Cubans and Americans. While all Cubans have at least minimal free access to doctors, more than 45 million Americans lack basic health insurance. Many are reluctant to seek early treatment they cannot afford, Butler said. Instead, they wait to be admitted to an emergency room.

“I know Americans tend to be sceptical,” he said, “but health and education are two achievements of the Cuban revolution… despite the government’s poor record on human rights.”

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However, Cuban officials assert that free health care, a variety of sports programmes, a healthy, if limited, diet and cultural activities have kept enough Cubans healthy enough well into old age to warrant starting the 120 years Club, which enrolls people who are 80 and older and strives to help them reach an even riper old age.