Something strange is going on in our world today. Using an example from my own life, a conversation I just had with my older sister. My older sister is very intelligent, she is someone I look up to in many ways, which made this conversation all the more strange. I found myself sitting with her listening to her say that hospitals in Cuba are good, that they are better than the US. I believe her exact words were “their medicine is socialized and free, so its good!”.
I can’t make any logical since of this, I know my sister is intelligent. I know she has to be aware of how silly this comment sounded. I mean just without even examining it; Cuba is a country that has food shortages, they lack basic infrastructure. Doctors all over the world share many similarities, and one thing is for sure – you are going to have a hard time attracting world class health care talent into a country where they will be concerned about finding their next meal. A quick search online shows that Cuba is not even in the top 100 ranked countries in therms of healthcare. I know my sister knows this deep down, I don’t understand why she would say something like this? She does watch a lot of main stream news and she lives in LA which is from the outsides seems like it has a very narrow minded echo chamber of ideas, (but then all of us live inside our own echo chambers to a degree).
Really almost all of the health care comparisons that people shout about are really very useless. The US heath care system ranks 30th in the widely shared rankings, behind many other countries. These rankings are obviously very silly though – these rankings are trying to do an almost impossible job anyway. What does it mean to have the “Best” healthcare. Does that mean having the best doctors, the thought leaders of the industry? Or does it mean having the best “average” of skill when you factor all of the doctors in any given country? The answer really depends on who is asking the question. Germany and the US are widely believed to have the best raw talent in the health industry, these countries have the most “thought leaders”. These countries drive the most innovation. So if you are someone who is in need of very advanced care – its obviously that your first choice would be Germany, or the United States. Beyond that if you have a simple injury that could be fixed by almost any doctor – or if you don’t have enough $ to afford treatment then you would be best off in a country where the “average” of all the doctors skills is the best and or the care is subsidized by the government.
The entire ranking process seems pretty silly and basically totally politicized.