When Michael Moore directed the documentary SiCKO (Dog
Eat Dog Films, 2007), he portrayed Cuba’s public health system as
an international elite that offers residents free, famously
effective, cradle-to-grave medical care that rivals anything
offered in the United States and Canada. Some observers challenge
any glowing appraisals offered by Moore and others as being at
least partially the products of a despotic propaganda machine whose
gears are cranked by the Castro dictatorship. The truth about our
“forbidden” neighbor’s famous health system is one that few
Americans have witnessed firsthand since the 1963 U.S. embargo, but
this fall, a commercial touring company will take a group of
healthcare practitioners on a face-to-face tour of the island’s
healthcare organizations and facilities.
