Trying to Figure Out the Obamacare Case? Let's Ask a Cuba Apologist!

Seriously, check out Andrea Mitchell, reporting from the Pope's visit to Cuba:

We're seeing this debate in our country about universal health care, the mandate, the Supreme Court arguments today. We have univeral coverage here—of course, it's a very different society, and an economic model that would not work in the United States. What do you see as the advantages of the Cuban system….

Granted, the last time I was in Cuba was just after the previous Pope had been there, but what struck me about the Cuban health care system then was that the average Cuban (quite unlike the visiting 2nd-world dignitary, or rich Western medical tourist), did not have any access to aspirin, even at those vaunted health clinics. You could reduce a Cuban mother to grateful sobs by bearing the gift of rubbing alcohol. What the system had in droves was doctors and nurses (especially helpful if you were a foreigner who needed a lot of physical therapy). What it didn't have was, you know, medicine. And supplies. And any patient-side input into care.

H/T Michael C. Moynihan.