Cuba and the Left

Many is the liberal that I've heard talk in glowing terms about the health care system in Cuba. The fact that communist countries often force their citizens to sacrifice many things in order to optimize a few should be no surprise to anyone. The fact that we still debate the merits of this is bewildering.

The US has recently taken half a step toward communizing (socializing? nationalizing?) health care, largely based on the argument that our capitalist system has failed. While this is a lie (see previous article), enough people bought it. Some talked about how "health care is too important to leave to the free market". Really?

What about food?

Food is just as or more important than health care, right? Is food too important to leave to the free market? The good news is we have a largely free and capitalist system of food production, delivery and distribution. The government does a little to ensure safety, but by and large it is capitalism's invisible hand that puts dinner on our tables.

It would be ridiculous for someone to say we need to nationalize the food system. Think about it. 99% of the people of the US have access to way more food than they need and the bottom 1% are well handled by charities. Very, very few people in our country starve. Competition among food growers has created amazingly high yields. Customers like organic foods, so it has become a large market. Innovation at the grocery store has reduced costs and have given us a myriad of choices on every aisle. You can practically eat a meal with the free samples.

Imagine Howard Dean on CNN screaming "We can't count on the greedy supermarket chains to deliver quality products! Millions will go hungry! Yeeaeaaaaaa!"

I mean, I think people would consider that ridiculous. I admit the possibility exists that I'm wrong.

Let's compare this to Cuba, the left's shining example. Their farms are horribly inefficient and provide only about 20% of the country's food needs. Supermarkets go for weeks without basic supplies such as bread or milk. Raul Castro has "reformed" things a bit ... farmers are now allowed to buy their own shovels and boots without having to wait for them to be handed out. But, not their pesticides or fertilizers. Can't push this liberty thing too far lest the state lose control. Must of last year's tomato crop rotted because government trucks failed to collect them on time. Food rationing is part of Cuban life.*

Maybe it would be instructive for liberals to spend some time in Cuba. Many that I know enjoy going to trendy restaurants and traveling to exotic destinations (conveniently forgetting about global warming for a few days). Perhaps it would be enlightening to see a place where opening a restaurant is illegal and it is forbidden for most citizens to leave the country.

Sadly, our health care system was not capitalist enough to be sufficiently successful. So, liberals said that capitalism was to blame and made it less so.

Yes, we can probably give government-run health care to everyone and even make it decent quality (for a while). But at what price?


* much of this data came from The Economist, March 27 edition.