Inside the Cuban healthcare system; A system based on prevention and health, that is good for providers and the patients they serve.

Image result for cuban hospitalInside the Cuban healthcare system; A system based on prevention and health, that is good for providers and the patients they serve.

Obamacare, Trump care or any other American system of healthcare has shown itself to be expensive, and one illness can bankrupt you and leave you deep in debt.  Access to care is limited by deductibles that can be quite high and it is likely your doctor who has been in practice for years is still paying off their educational debt.

Those who are below a certain level income wise can be on Medicaid, which many doctors refuse to take due to the lower reimbursement rates.

Medical care in a capitalist society has become about profits, and debt, rather than getting the help you need and when you do have a problem, you are left wondering if the insurance covered everything, or if a doctor you visited in the “in network” hospital is in your network.   That is crazy.

Cuba, on the other hand has been looked at fondly because of its healthcare system, and the way it provides access to care.   They have a system that has one tier, and they help fund it by sending doctors abroad to help others in other countries.  Doctors do home office visits and while they may not have all the supplies or machines to do high tech testing, they manage to keep their people healthy, at a much lower cost than in the USA, and do not have nearly as many people taking drugs for every symptom.

By not being in debt, doctors can afford to work for less, and while some people may need to travel to visit a specialist, overall, their model shows that their model can work while not bankrupting a nation.

Now, as we normalize relations with Cuba, they should be able to get higher tech equipment to improve their diagnostic abilities, and fix some of their crumbling hospital infrastructure which will require investments.   Based on what I’ve read, this will be done logically and affordably as well, and we in the USA should look at their model and learn from it.

Read about their healthcare system here.

Is the Cuban healthcare system really as great as people claim?
November 30, 2016 by Rich Warner

Pundits have been discussing the merits (or not) of Fidel Castro”™s legacy as his body lies in state. The Cuban healthcare system is often stated as one of El Commandante”™s greatest achievements. But how great is the system really? As someone who trained as a doctor in Cuba, I”™d like to give you an insider”™s view.

The Cuban healthcare system, borne out of its revolutionary socialist ideology, regards accessibility to healthcare as a fundamental right of its citizens. It focuses heavily on a preventative approach to medicine and offering the simplest check-up to the most complex surgery, free of charge. Dental care, medicines and even home visits from doctors are all covered by the system.

The island has the health statistics to support this seemingly impeccable system. An infant mortality rate of 4.2 per thousand births (compared with a rate of 3.5 per thousand births in the UK in 2015), life expectancy of 77 years for men and 81 years for women (on par with the UK”™s life expectancy of 79 years for men and 83 years for women), and a doctor to patient ratio of one per 150, which surpasses many developed nations (UK ratio from the latest World Bank data is 2.8 doctors per 1,000 patients). It is no surprise therefore, that the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, during a visit to Cuba hailed its healthcare service as, “œa model for many countries”.

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