this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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That's fair. Don't you think the main point still stands? The US is abysmal for healthcare and is comparable to a much poorer nation which it embargoes?
I'm pretty sure that at this point everyone on earth knows the US has absolutely atrocious healthcare and even countries with a budget lower than it's poorest state can do better. Comparing it to Cuba doesn't really make any additional point in my opinion though.
American’s must not live on Earth then, because anytime I try to have this conversation I get the same, typical bullshit anti-socialism propaganda and American capitalist innovation arguments.
So no, everyone on Earth does NOT know that America’s health care is abysmal.
Comparing it to Cuba is actually quite remarkable to most Americans who think of Cuba as a shithole. The wealthiest country in history versus the island that country has actively fucked with for decades.
https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/2_Probabilistic%20Projections/5_Life%20Expectancy/1a_Both%20Sexes/United%20States%20of%20America.svg
https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/2_Probabilistic%20Projections/5_Life%20Expectancy/1a_Both%20Sexes/Cuba.svg
Just the fact that both of these are as close as they are is appalling for most Americans in my experience. The US is so wealthy it should look like this:
https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/2_Probabilistic%20Projections/5_Life%20Expectancy/1a_Both%20Sexes/Denmark.svg
But the US also spends twice as much on healthcare per capita as Denmark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
Hm, I think the kinds or categories of differences might be significant. Enough for legislators and policy makers, and I think enough for residents of different countries to get some perspective. If there's no context or the context is not well understood, how would one know if things can get better or worse in a meaningful way?
We can’t have that: we can’t have the threat of a good example
yeah fair point, do you think it would make sense to say that some have knowledge of it besides academics & people in think tanks? like politicians i guess
Politicians generally aren’t going to be interested in knowing it, because they generally answer to the donor class that wants the threat of a good example suppressed in the first place, and want our shitty for-profit healthcare system to stay the way it is: a cash cow for themselves. Most think tanks would also want it suppressed, because they’re funded & controlled by the capitalist class as well. Corporate media aren’t going to want to tell us that Cubans have a longer life expectancy, either, because they too are owned by the capitalists who don’t want us to know it.
I think the fact that US healthcare is a joke all over the world is a way better perspective than a comparison to Cuba's average lifespan (Even if it were accurate).
For the average person reading an article like this a headline saying "US healthcare is the laughing stock of the world" is a lot more effective title than "Cuba beat US average lifespan for the last 4 years".
If you want to seriously compare healthcare then comparing accessibility and outcomes would be a better stat but not to one specific country but all of them. But that would not make much of a news article, more of an actual study.
yeah, that's true, i guess what makes it a bit off is i'm accustomed to hearing awful things about the US.