I refer you to the comment policy of the blog:
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2007/07/comment-policy.html

I have also said in the past that posts are purposely presented in a polarizing manner to generate discussion:
http://scienceroll.com/2007/08/18/behind-the-scenes-of-medical-blogs-kevin-md/

Make of that what you will.

Thanks,
Kevin

Shortages have always been a plague of all communist countries – be it Soviet Union or Cuba. The shortages in health care weren’t specifically the problem of socialized health care per se, but of the whole “planned” economy. There was a shortage of everything – food (other than bread and potatoes), equipment, nice clothing, toilet paper, etc.. There weren’t enough rooms and beds in hospitals, but there also wasn’t enough housing. And if you don’t have needles and basic drugs like antibiotics, I am not even talking about more expensive equipment, it is really difficult to provide good quality health care. So unless socialized medicine has to be accompanied by “planned” production of needles and drugs and equipment there is no real reason to expect the same shortages here.

In terms of manipulating statistics to satisfy Castro – this problem was also pervasive for the whole communist economy and not restricted to health care.

I am not necessarily for socialized health care. In fact, having a cousin in Germany and seeing both advantages and problems of their system, I am a bit suspicious of it (in fact having a nice insurance I am afraid of loosing what I have). But if you want to make a valid comparison – use Germany or Italy or Sweden, not the third world country like Cuba. Yes, I understand about Moore’s documentary – but just because he took a bit of Castro propaganda as an example of socialized medicine, you should too. If he used a stupid example, doesn’t mean we should.

Thanks Kevin!

Of course, private corporations would never manipulate data to mis-represent major accomplishments *cough*healthsouth*cough *2.7billiondollarfraud*cough*, because for profit corporations have absolutly no reason to do so *cough*enron*cough* worldcom*cough*. So, thank goodness the US has the only kind of healthcare that is beyond reproach, private, for-profit healthcare.