Health care in the Americas:
A tale of two systems
By Heather Cottin
The Bush administration has accused Cuba of
"destabilization" for providing free health care and education
to Venezuela.
Some 10,169 Cuban doctors, mostly women, are currently
working in Vene zuela, mainly in the most impoverished
neighborhoods of Caracas. "It is a battle for life. The
munitions are medicines," said Venezuelan Ambassador Julio
Montes.
The Bush administration has characterized this humanitarian
campaign as an attempt to "destabilize parts of the region,"
according to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. (New York
Times, Jan. 9) The top U.S. official on Latin American affairs,
Roger Noriega, said, "We have sources of information that paint
a disturbing picture of Cuban involvement in supporting
elements in various countries that seek to destabilize
democratically elected governments."
Washington fears that this international solidarity will
enhance Cuba's stature in Latin America and increase
working-class support in Venezuela and Latin America for the
Bolivarian Revol ution led by President Hugo Chávez.
Providing health care for the poor is part of the Bolivarian
Constitution adopt ed in 1999. The Venezuelan state
"consecrates rights of citizens to health and medical care, as
well as other social rights, while increasing state
responsibility."
For decades health care for the poor languished in
Venezuela. Only 7 percent of government expenditures went to
health care. Some 14 percent of children suffer from stunted
growth, according to Unicef.
Cuba is the only nation in Latin America and the Caribbean
that provides free, quality health care to its people. Cuba's
infant mortality statistics are the lowest in the Western
Hemisphere. Washington, D.C., has an infant mortality rate
twice that of Cuba, a small developing country. In 2000, Cuban
President Fidel Castro even offered to send doctors to poor
communities in the U.S.
While Cuba is helping to improve health care in Venezuela,
the number of people in the U.S. with access to medical
insurance is declining. There were 43.6 million uninsured U.S.
residents, or 15.2 percent, in 2002. That's up nearly 6 percent
from the previous year.
A Census Bureau analyst said last September that
18-to-24-year-olds experience a high rate of "uninsurance." He
also noted that "one-third of all Hispanics, one-fifth of
Blacks, and one-tenth of whites in the U.S. were uninsured."
(CBSNews.com, Sept. 30)
The U.S. Census Bureau said that health premiums increased
13.9 percent between 2002 and 2003. A family policy, on
average, cost $9,068. The Department of Health and Human
Services reported that health care spending shot up 9.3 percent
in 2002, the largest increase in 11 years, to a total of $1.55
trillion. That represents an average of $5,440 for each person
in the United States. (New York Times, Jan. 8)
This money goes to HMOs, hospitals and the other corporate
fiends sucking the blood of people dependent on the U.S. health
care system. Health expenditures account for almost 15 percent
of the Gross Domestic Product. Health insurance premiums have
gone up precipitously in the past year, with increases ranging
from 45 percent in New Mexico and 31 percent in North Carolina
to 20 percent in Nevada and 50 percent in California. (Public
Citizen, Congress Watch)
Last year health care moguls lobbied for, and won, a bill
that weakened Medi care while guaranteeing that drug prices
would remain high. The bill prevented low-priced
pharmaceuticals from Canada or elsewhere from interfering with
U.S. drug industry profits.
Total health care spending in the U.S. rose $212.5 billion
in 2002. Out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs rose $6.1
billion, to $48.6 billion. (New York Times, Jan. 8) That year
the drug industry raked in profits five-and-a-half times
greater than the median for all industries represented in the
Fortune 500. (Congress Watch, June 2003)
While Cuba offers state-of-the-art medicine for free to all
Cubans, and provides its well-trained doctors to the poor
people of Venezuela, the Bush administration fumes. Granma
newspaper asked in a front-page editorial defending Cuba's
support for Venezuela, "Since when has promoting education and
culture been seen as destabilizing nations?"
But it is destabilizing to the imperialists if the people of
the Americas realize that capitalism rewards corporate greed
while ignoring human need. n
Reprinted from the Jan. 22, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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