(Cuban doctors attend to an injured Pakistani refugee after the 2006 earthquake.)

With Steve Clemons and others, I recently visited Cuba (March 2007). One of the areas of Cuban activity on which we focused was what has been described as one of the world's best systems for delivering healthcare to impoverished people—in Cuba, in Venezuela and elsewhere in South and Central America, and increasingly in sub-Saharan Africa. We visited Cuba's medical "contingency brigade", for example, and talked with doctors and other healthcare personnel about the brigade's recent, highly successful tenure in Pakistan following the devastating earthquakes there in 2006. The passion in the doctors' eyes as they related their experiences in delivering basic healthcare in isolated, freezing regions of Pakistan was truly heartwarming. Some of the human interest stories the doctors related brought laughter to us all and served to demonstrate conclusively how deeply these medical personnel had been touched by their almost year-long experience in Pakistan. They were proud to announce that as a result of the good relations thus created, Cuba was asked to open its first-ever embassy in Islamabad. Talk about effective public diplomacy!

We also visited the Finlay Institute: Center for Research-Development and Production of Human Vaccines—incidentally, one of the places that the jacobin Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs, John Bolton, alleged in 2002 was manufacturing biological weapons. We didn't find any such activity (and we did discover that at best the Institute has a rudimentary Bio-Level III capability and no Bio-Level IV capability—the latter needed if one is to engage in sophisticated biological agent research and development). After the visit, we assumed that Bolton's insights were right up there with the CIA's in 2002-2003 with respect to Saddam Hussein's mobile biological weapons labs. It's safe to say we considered the assessment by the former commander of the U.S. Southern Command, Marine General Charles Wilhelm, as more definitive: "During my three year tenure, from September 1997 until September 2000 at Southern Command, I didn't receive a single report or a single piece of evidence that would have led me to the conclusion that Cuba was in fact developing, producing or weaponizing biological or chemical agents."

In March of this year, what we did find at the Finlay Institute, for example, was information about its having developed a serogroup B meningococcal vaccine (VA-MENGOC-BC), one that had virtually eliminated that deadly disease among the children of Cuba. Moreover, we discovered that there was a significant incidence of the disease among children in the western U.S., but that due to the embargo on Cuba our doctors and health officials had been unable to avail themselves of this new and very effective (more than 80%) vaccine.

One of the most dramatic moments for us occurred when we visited one of Cuba's hospitals in Havana and plowed through a waiting room of people from all over the world—poor people who had come largely to have eye surgery of some sort, many to have cataracts removed so their blindness or near-blindness would be eliminated. Speaking to some of them was, again, heartwarming. They all said that they were there because of Cuba's outreach. Again, what public diplomacy!

I had reason to compare starkly what I had seen in March in Cuba with what I experienced up close and personal in the U.S. in June, July and August. My 91-year-old Dad and my 87-year-old Mom were caught in the clutches of the U.S. healthcare system. During this time, Medicare was raped, pillaged, and plundered to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars until I intervened, stopped the vicious cycle of short-term hospitalization followed by therapy and rehabilitation (both mostly on the taxpayers' dollars), completely colluded in by all medical personnel, and said "Enough!" and moved my parents to a full care and assisted living facility nearby. Not only did the financial outlay stabilize and become the burden mostly of my parents rather than the U.S. taxpayer (my parents are relatively affluent), but their health improved as well.

My rough calculations informed me that, with trips each time through the emergency room at the local hospital, a five-day hospital stay, and a 21-day stay at the nearby therapy and rehabilitation center—all mostly on Medicare—my parents likely used up close to a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer money. My conclusion: the U.S. healthcare system is so broken that "broken" is not sufficiently descriptive. (And let me add that as a veteran and a retired military officer, I have not used the TriCare Health system since leaving the U.S. Army 10 years ago; I fear the results too much. When I need a doctor—not often, thank God, so far—I go to a nearby civilian-run clinic and pay cash for or charge whatever expense I encounter. It's in and out, like going to Wal-Mart for a loaf of bread and some eggs.)

We could learn much and benefit from how the Cubans deliver healthcare, particularly applicable to our rural areas and our inner cities where impoverished people predominate. And in the process, the contact would benefit Cubans. They would be able to study what is strong and robust about the U.S. healthcare system—the high technology components, for example—and at the same time learn that freedom and democracy are pretty good items too. But we won't do so—not until we change our Cuba policy, "the stupidest policy on earth."

-- Lawrence Wilkerson