Obamacare has probably saved my life, or at least made my declining years less painful and allowed me to work and stay off the streets.
But it certainly has flaws — flaws that a Republican Congress truly interested in not only saving money but improving health care could have easily solved with President Obama in the past few years.
But until we finally arrive at a single-payer or Medicare-for-all system, why not consider an approach that improves health care and moves us much farther down the road toward that ultimate goal?
All we need to do is sign a contract with Cuba in which Cuba sends over some of its superbly trained doctors — particularly its GPs — to provide health care for free to any American who wants to take up the offer.
Cuba already does this for much of Latin America and other parts of the so-called Third World.
I suspect the cost of that contract will be billions less than what we are paying for Obamacare — and even less expensive in dollars and lives than what Trumpcare would have cost — while allowing anyone who so chooses to keep their current insurance plan and doctors.
More people with health care at a much lower individual and overall cost.
And if you’re worried about the quality of the care, consider that by just about every measure, Cubans — against all odds thanks to criminal policies against them by their neighbor to the north — are healthier than Americans.
At the same time, the revenue such a deal would generate for Cuba would be a partial, but concrete, compensation to Cuba for all of our catastrophic sanctions.
Here’s an excellent summation by Professor Salim Lamrani of Cuba’s successful health-care efforts.
Cubacare: Consider it Fidel Castro’s parting gift to America.
