Senator Sanders Is Wrong on Cuban Education and Healthcare

Marian L. Tupy andChelsea FollettThe current frontrunner among the contenders vying to become the Democratic Party ’s presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders (D‑VT), sang Cuba’s praises in a recent60 Minutesinterview on CBS. Senator Sanders applauded Cuba ’s education and healthcare system. Potential Sanders supporters should know that Cuba’s literacy rate and healthcare system are nothing to lionize.First, consider literacy. According to Sanders, “When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? ” Sanders is surely old enough to know that all communist dictatorships throughout history have ensured that their people were literate—in part so that the people might take in the disinformation printed by government propaganda ministries.Furthermore, a look at the data reveals that all of the progress regarding literacy that happened under communism in Cuba would almost certainly have happened under a different political and economic system. While trustworthy data, defogged of Cuban propaganda, are difficult to come by, the U.S. Department of State tried to do just that by comparing improvements in human well ‐​being in Cuba between the 1950s (the last decade of the hated Batista regime) and 2000.Accordingly, Cuba ’s literacy raterose by 26 percent between 1950/53 and 2000. But literacy rose even more, by 37 percent, in Paraguay. Food consumption in Cuba actuallyde...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs