Thread by @Noahpinion

1/OK, let's talk about CUBA!

Was Bernie Sanders right to praise its education and health systems?

Well, maybe.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

2/Cuba is one of the top Latin American countries when it comes to education and health.

Here is a 2002 World Bank report comparing Cuba to other Latin American countries:
documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/226… …

3/Cuba's health care system in particular is famous for high quality and universal access.

theconversation.com/is-the-cuban-h…

4/Cuba is estimated to spend only 12% of its GDP on health care (compared to 17% in the U.S.). But the two countries have similar life expenctancies.

That's pretty impressive!!

5/BUT. One problem with evaluating the performance of a closed-off, authoritarian, state-directed economy is that officials have a way of juking the statistics. So although Cuba's health and education are impressive, they're probably not *quite* as impressive as you've heard...

6/One Cuba number that might be fake is the infant mortality rate.

academic.oup.com/heapol/article…

Some researchers allege that Cuban doctors reclassify baby deaths as failed pregnancies, lowering the official infant mortality rate far below its true value.

7/One worrying stat is the maternal mortality rate.

Careful studies by international organizations placed Cuba's maternal mortality at 39 per 100,000 live births in 2015, compared to 14 in the U.S. Cuba's was higher than many Latin American countries.

apps.who.int/iris/bitstream…

8/Meanwhile, Cuba has achieved universal literacy, and that's great!!

But it had pretty high literacy to start with. Countries like Brazil, Peru, and El Salvador, in contrast, have achieved very big *gains over time* - an even more impressive accomplishment.

9/So although Cuba's achievements in health and education are impressive, they need to be kept in perspective AND viewed with the appropriate skepticism.

OK, so let's talk about the morality of praising an authoritarian regime like Cuba's...

10/There's no equivocating: Castro's regime was a brutal one. And the country, while less brutal now, is still authoritarian.

Should we compliment the achievements of such a regime??

hrw.org/news/2016/11/2…

thedailybeast.com/fidel-castros-…

11/Bernie Sanders has repeatedly and explicitly condemned Cuba's authoritarianism.

But propagandists who denounce democracy in favor of authoritarian, one-party states issue no such caveats. Is Bernie playing into their hands??

12/Maybe. But I think that fear is overblown.

Would someone who praised Soviet science and engineering in 1957 have been carrying water for repressive regimes?

No. Soviet achievements pushed the U.S. to redouble its efforts in space and science and education.

13/Sometimes even MISPLACED respect for rivals might spur the U.S. to do better.

The USSR was racist as hell, but its propaganda might have helped shame the U.S. into ending Jim Crow and reforming racist immigration laws.

theatlantic.com/international/…

14/If Cuba's achievements in literacy can spur the U.S. to spend more on schools in poor Black and Hispanic neighborhoods -- which really does work, by the way -- then good.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

15/And if Cuba's (slightly overrated) achievements in health can spur the U.S. to switch to national health insurance...also, good.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

16/Praising Cuba's health and education systems should NOT turn into an endorsement of the Cuban regime, or of authoritarian government. Instead, it should help to spur a Sputnik Moment in U.S. health and education.

17/Anyway, my article touches on other issues, such as Cuba's economic performance, the U.S. embargo, and Trump's policies toward the island nation.

Check it out!

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…