Today seems like the perfect day to return to this excellent article by Jay Nordlinger examining the health care system of Cuba. Or, rather, the three health care systems of Cuba.

Apologists like Michael Moore have created an illusion of free and first-class health care for everyone under the Communist regime. Left-wing politicians here in the United States further the illusion, often citing the Cuban system as a model going forward.

As Nordlinger writes:

The Left has always had a deep psychological need to believe in the myth of Cuban health care. On that island, as everywhere else, Communism has turned out to be a disaster: economic, physical, and moral. Not only have persecution, torture, and murder been routine, there is nothing material to show for it. The Leninist rationalization was, “You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.” Orwell memorably replied, “Where’s the omelet?” There is never an omelet.

In short, they need to salvage something from Cuba. The country is just sitting there, 90 miles off the coast of Florida, reminding everyone again that Communism doesn’t work. So something needs to be salvaged.

Human rights? Ha! Economic prosperity for citizens? Even more laughable. A happy citizenry? Ask the Coast Guard as it stops the umpteenth boat of Cuban refugees escaping the Cuban regime for the capitalist United States. As has been said, we don’t need to build borders to keep Americans from escaping to Cuba. But Cuba does have to prevent citizens from escaping to the United States.

So the left has settled on creating an illusion of ubiquitous free and high-quality health care in the Communist state. Just be more like Cuba and you too can have free and wonderful health care. That argument reached its zenith with Michael Moore’s ridiculous film Sicko.

But what’s the real story? Again we return to Nordlinger:

To be sure, there is excellent health care on Cuba — just not for ordinary Cubans. Dr. Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies explains that there is not just one system, or even two: There are three. The first is for foreigners who come to Cuba specifically for medical care. This is known as “medical tourism.” The tourists pay in hard currency, which provides oxygen to the regime. And the facilities in which they are treated are First World: clean, well supplied, state-of-the-art.

The foreigners-only facilities do a big business in what you might call vanity treatments: Botox, liposuction, and breast implants. Remember, too, that there are many separate, or segregated, facilities on Cuba. People speak of “tourism apartheid.” For example, there are separate hotels, separate beaches, separate restaurants — separate everything. As you can well imagine, this causes widespread resentment in the general population.

The second health-care system is for Cuban elites — the Party, the military, official artists and writers, and so on. In the Soviet Union, these people were called the “nomenklatura.” And their system, like the one for medical tourists, is top-notch.

Then there is the real Cuban system, the one that ordinary people must use — and it is wretched. Testimony and documentation on the subject are vast. Hospitals and clinics are crumbling. Conditions are so unsanitary, patients may be better off at home, whatever home is. If they do have to go to the hospital, they must bring their own bedsheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper. And basic medications are scarce. In Sicko, even sophisticated medications are plentiful and cheap. In the real Cuba, finding an aspirin can be a chore. And an antibiotic will fetch a fortune on the black market.

So you’ll be just fine if you’re a foreigner coming to Cuba for medical tourism. The regime seeks to “save face”, much like China, so those who can bring stories back to the free world need to be treated well. You’ll also be just fine if you’re among the elites. Sound familiar? The elites in Congress were exempted from ObamaCare. You have to keep the powerful happy.

But if you’re an ordinary schmuck, if you’re just the average Cuban citizen, woe be unto you. Hopefully you brought a suitcase of cash to acquire some Penicillin.

A nurse spoke to Isabel Vincent of Canada’s National Post. “We have nothing,” said the nurse. “I haven’t seen aspirin in a Cuban store here for more than a year. If you have any pills in your purse, I’ll take them. Even if they have passed their expiry date.”

The equipment that doctors have to work with is either antiquated or nonexistent. Doctors have been known to reuse latex gloves — there is no choice. When they travel to the island, on errands of mercy, American doctors make sure to take as much equipment and as many supplies as they can carry. One told the Associated Press, “The [Cuban] doctors are pretty well trained, but they have nothing to work with. It’s like operating with knives and spoons.”

And doctors are not necessarily privileged citizens in Cuba. A doctor in exile told the Miami Herald that, in 2003, he earned what most doctors did: 575 pesos a month, or about 25 dollars. He had to sell pork out of his home to get by. And the chief of medical services for the whole of the Cuban military had to rent out his car as a taxi on weekends. “Everyone tries to survive,” he explained. (Of course, you can call a Cuban with a car privileged, whatever he does with it.)

In fact, old diseases largely unheard of these days in the United States are back with a vengeance in Cuba. Among them are typhoid fever and leprosy. One exiled doctor actually wrote an entire book on the problem of dengue on the Communist island.

Nordlinger has an excellent debunking of claims by the left regarding Cuba’s health care system, and you really should read the whole thing. It’s not too long but it is comprehensive.

And then you can walk away disturbed by the fact that the same guy who brought about that system praised Obama for passing government-run health care today. And he wanted to know what took us so long to bring about a system like Cuba has had for years.

When you look at Cuba’s real health care system you’re looking into the future of American health care under ObamaCare. There will be quality care for the powerful but rationing and deplorable conditions for the rest of us. Welcome to ObamaCare.