(All photos: Havana, 2005 by Marc PoKempner)

An astute pundit named Rufus Miles observed that 'where you stand depends on where you sit'. In last Friday's simpleton roast of Cuban health care on ABC’s 20/20, the standers were mostly sitting in Miami, and the rest were sitting in Langley. (For the full dose see transcript or video ). In fact, the CIA turned out to be the only second opinion John Stossel sought for the whole story.

It was a sample of what I call “retro-reporting”--a McCarthy era piece against voodoo communism—no kidding, the video actually has sinister Soviet soldiers marching against a red-flagged Lenin backdrop. But the trouble is that it’s supposed to be real 2007 journalism. On health care, no less.

Stossel goes on to accuse “communist regimes” of hiding facts, yet it’s Stossel who proves no facts of his own, content with phantom sources “doctors tell us”, “a Venezuelan woman”. Or else disgruntled Miami, with its 45-year baggage. He posts seamy photos from unabashedly biased sources, with no proof of where they were taken or when. In fact, no reporting for the story was ever done inside Cuba—just some B-roll showing healthy babies (sic?).

Not to mention the absence of Cuban health officials. In fact, Stossel portrays it as just another communist plot when the UN and World Health Organization publish statistics from Cuban health authorities. Are we supposed to take this seriously?

ABC News—shame on you--gets away with it because of a fatal twist in US foreign policy: most Americans are banned from travel to Cuba by our own government. So we join the ranks of the vulnerable, and have no choice but to swallow Stossel whole.

God forbid that Michael Moore’s movie and its reference to Cuba might make us stop to think that we could and should have better health care in America. Stossel would prefer we keep on stepping, and when it comes to Cuba, be just scared enough to cross the street altogether.

Because health care in our country is in trouble.

Take a look at the state of Florida itself. It should make any human rights-loving Cuban-American turn their crosshairs around. This summer, the Health Council of South Florida released Miami-Dade County’s 2007 Community Health Report Card: access to health care got a pretty scary “F”. So did the rate of uninsured (28.6% total, more for Hispanics and blacks); as well as overweight/obese adults at 60.6% and babies born with low birth weights at 9%. (But the news was not all bad: lower death rates for strokes, hepatitis rates, and reduced domestic violence all got an “A”.)

Access to health care is just where Cuba excels. Despite its poverty, as I pointed out in the Huffington Post recently, Cuba makes health care available to all its citizens,

scoring comparably with the U.S. on many health indicators at a fraction of the cost. In fact, a Gallup Poll conducted last December revealed that 96% of Cuban citizens said they had regular access to health care, no matter who they were or what their income. That's a pretty high score for any poll. And it was Gallup, not Fidel Castro.

Which brings me full circle to Stossel once again. I’ve spent nearly two decades in Cuba covering health care, and just as important, being a patient in regular Cuban hospitals and clinics.

So here are some facts you didn’t get from Stossel:

 Cuban health statistics are as good as it gets. One reason you can tell is because not all of them are glowing: maternal mortality is still a problem in Cuba, as is increased threat from diabetes. This and other data are publicly available. Moreover, organizations like the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which maintain permanent offices in Havana and regularly send evaluation teams to Cuba, have issued positive reports after firsthand assessments from visits to provinces across the country.

 On Cuban hospitals and “elites”: Sure, Cuban hospitals are dilapidated, and after the economic nosedive of the 90s, they’re just now getting the repairs and remodeling they need. Yes, Michael Moore’s 911 responders went to one of the already-refurbished facilities—but it’s the hospital that also serves 156,000 people living in one of Havana’s most overcrowded neighborhoods, not a hospital built for government elites.

 On the claim that Cuban women are subjected to “a widespread practice of forced abortions when there might be indications of problems with the fetus” (ABC’s website summary):

This is patently false. By law in Cuba, abortion is accessible and free. However, for years, abortion rates have been going down in Cuba, not up. When congenital malformations occur during pregnancy, women are informed of the situation and their options in order to make a personal decision. At the same time, entire facilities like the Children’s Heart Center in Havana and a national network of special schools are dedicated to children who are born with congenital problems.

 In this context, it’s more than ironic that ABC has never reported on the US embargo on Cuba that prevents the Heart Center from directly purchasing a medication vital to keeping blue babies alive—blue babies who had problems in the womb, but who were born and treated thanks to the Center.

The bottom line is: as we look for serious reform to reshape our own health care, it would do us good if ABC took off the Cold War blinders, and instead made an honest attempt to draw lessons from experiences in Cuba and elsewhere. And in so doing, 20-20 producers might have brought us another story: just a few weeks ago, YM Biosciences-USA received a license from the Treasury Department to test a Cuban cancer vaccine in American children victimized by inoperable brain cancer. But then again, what a network chooses not to cover says volumes.

-- Gail Reed