A good place to start in upholding the above thesis is to look at Cuba’s education system, one of the areas of “basic need” targeted by the CAFC. The fact is that 100% of Cuban children attend relatively well-funded and adequately equipped elementary schools, where the student-teacher ratios are among the most favorable in the world (well below the average of even some of the most developed nations). In addition, university and professional training are accessible to all. Although this island nation is smaller than the state of Virginia, it contains 57 centers of higher education, with the government guaranteeing the right to free education at all levels in any of these institutions, provided that admission standards are met. This commitment has resulted in an exceedingly highly educated population. At 98%, the adult literacy rate in Cuba is on a par with the world’s most developed nations and averages 15 percentage points higher than the literacy rates found in other Latin American countries. This does not mean that the system is perfect; Cubans face a grievous shortage of resources, sometimes including food for mandated meals served during school hours. What it does demonstrate, however, is that the CAFC is seemingly divorced from reality in identifying Cuban education as a sector desperate for American succour.
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Another sector targeted by the CAFC is Cuba’s healthcare system. Contrary to what one would expect of a “cruel dictatorship,” the Cuban government has been committed to the provision of universal health services since it first came to power. Prior to the advent of the Castro administration, Cuba had 6,286 practicing physicians, which meant that only a small elite sector of society had access to doctor’s care, while health services in the countryside were virtually non-existent. By 2002, the number of doctors had meteorically risen to 67,079, with the physician-civilian ratio improving from 1 doctor for every 1,076 patients in 1958 (pre-Castro) to an extraordinary 1 for every 168 in 2002 in revolutionary Cuba. Cubans today have an average life expectancy that exceeds that of other Latin Americans by 8 years and its mortality rate for children under 5 is staggeringly low compared to other countries in the region (in 2005, Cuba’s child mortality rate was lower even than in the U.S.). While these are not the genera of statistics that normally make their way into the American media, Cuba is viewed throughout Latin America and other parts of the world as providing an exemplary model for the provision of universal healthcare to its people. In Washington, however, anti-Castro imperatives continues to cloud the picture with heavily politicized information, generating misguided and sterile initiatives as epitomized by the CAFC. At the same time, a flourishing educational and medical system doesn’t mean that the issues of human rights observance and political pluralism have been resolved.
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The Torricelli Act was passed in 1992 in an effort to mortally damage Cuba’s trade relations with third countries. According to its provisions, subsidiaries of U.S. companies were prohibited from trading with Cuba and foreign ships that docked at a Cuban port were banned from entering U.S. ports for a period of six months. When Castro’s regime did not crumble as hoped, the Clinton administration, under increasing pressure from the exile community, again tightened sanctions, this time passing the notorious Helms Burton Act in 1996. The bill, which was ruthless in its quest to sever third country ties with Cuba, was energetically opposed by the European Union for its violation of international law and its members’ business interests on the island. Prior to the Castro revolution in 1959, a major part of Cuban wealth rested in the hands of rich Americans who, among a number of other things, owned much of the island’s sugar and rum producing land. These properties were seized by Castro and redistributed among the campesinos to be used as farm parcels. The Helms Burton Act states that any foreign investor currently engaged in business ventures involving property that once belonged to an American citizen (fifty years ago or more) could now be sued in American courts.
Although completely isolated by a continued U.S. policy aimed at hermetically sealing Havana from both diplomatic and economic contacts abroad, the Cuban authorities managed at enormous effort to maintain existing funding levels for their health services, viewing healthcare as a primary right of all of its citizens. Social unrest and extreme hardships were contained during the 1990’s precisely because the government devoted what few resources it had to maintaining the provision of basic food, healthcare and social services to the population. In 2002, just as Cuba began to emerge from this “special period” of enormous hardship, 99.2% of all Cubans were still under the care of a family physician, with the infant mortality rate remaining among the lowest even in the developed world. Considering the severity of Cuba’s recent economic crisis following the fall of the Soviet Union, these statistics are quite impressive. They are incongruous, however, with what Washington describes as a heartless system under the unyielding heel of a cruel bureaucracy.
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http://www.coha.org/2007/05/24/rethinking-cuba-taking-off-those-miami-sunglasses-may-help-clear-up-the-picture/>
More "crap".
Like the rest of the Cuban economy, Cuban medical care has suffered from severe material shortages following the end of Soviet subsidies and the ongoing United States embargo against Cuba that began after the Cuban Missile Crisis.<13>
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the chance of a Cuban child dying at five years of age or younger is 7 per 1000 live births in Cuba, while it's 8 per 1000 in the US. WHO reports that Cuban males have a life expectancy at birth of 75 years and females 79 years. In comparison, the US life expectancy at birth is 75 and 80 years for males and females, respectively. Cuba's infant mortality rate is lower than the US with 5 deaths per thousand in Cuba versus 7 per thousand in the US. Cuba has nearly twice as many physicians as the U.S. -- 5.91 doctors per thousand people compared to 2.56 doctors per thousand, according to WHO. <14> <14>
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Health_indicators_and_issues>
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