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Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

nytimes.com

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Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#51

Post by dpraburaj »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #15
influx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet those Cuban doctors would give up their entire way of life, access to family members and the country they grew up in to move to the evil capitalist United States. Weird.

Weird how they do it after they became doctors and not before.

It's actually weird how many people in capitalist countries look at failed/failing communist states and think of them as utopias, all the while ignoring the plight of millions living there in poverty and with no clear path to a better standard of life.

They should put their money where their mouth is and spend at least a few decades in such countries before criticising others who've made a choice to leave(for various reasons).

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#52

Post by throwawayknecht »

briandear wrote: post #43
ue_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's possible to critique both systems; the American (capitalist) system in which you need to pay huge amounts for education in order to have the mere chance to get a job that's above sustenace wage, the system screwing over especially those who can't afford to pay back debt; the Cuban system in which your training is free of charge but you cannot apply your skills such that you receive above sustenance wage.…

Plumbers and electricians make great money and they aren’t incurring debt to do so. Plumbers, especially self employed ones, make more than your average “marketing assistant” or some other job that requires a degree. Plenty of people go to school and don’t rack up tens of thousands in debt. The question we should be asking is why does education cost keep expanding so quickly: cost inflation is much higher than even h…

The number of plumbers - more precisely the amount of plumbing work - is essentially constrained by the number of sinks.

There's no limit to how much marketing can be done.

Thus, late capitalism.

(Also the "genius" of software development, where we seem to have invented a way to make infinite broken sinks.)

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#54

Post by joshuas »

notyourday wrote: post #32
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

You know I can't really feel their plight. Take this: >Hundreds of miles away, in Minas Gerais State, Dr. Jiménez, 34, found the work rewarding, but also began to harbor feelings of resentment. “You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price?” she said. “You wind up paying for it your whole life.” Is that not the point? The communist government allows anybody to attend their…

The love of communism among those that don't live in places that tried to implement it is something that totally baffles me.

The grass is always greener I suspect.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#55

Post by ameister14 »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

You know I can't really feel their plight. Take this: >Hundreds of miles away, in Minas Gerais State, Dr. Jiménez, 34, found the work rewarding, but also began to harbor feelings of resentment. “You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price?” she said. “You wind up paying for it your whole life.” Is that not the point? The communist government allows anybody to attend their…

>Seems weird to come from a country which is explicitly organized around giving everybody a chance to succeed

Is that what Cuba is organized around?

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#56

Post by pdpgxpgxydx »

ue_ wrote: post #29
mratzloff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure American doctors would pay down their debt quite quickly if they lived like a Cuban doctor and nearly their entire paycheck went to school loans. Ultimately, if you think it's such a good deal, I'm sure Cuba would let you defect and go to medical school for the opportunity to earn $30/month like she does in Cuba.

I think it's possible to critique both systems; the American (capitalist) system in which you need to pay huge amounts for education in order to have the mere chance to get a job that's above sustenace wage, the system screwing over especially those who can't afford to pay back debt; the Cuban system in which your training is free of charge but you cannot apply your skills such that you receive above sustenance wage.…

If the Cuban government is making those decisions it's not communism, it's state capitalism. In socialism, workers own the means of production collectively, and have voting power and representation in their workplace.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#57

Post by trgv »

coliveira wrote: post #26
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

You know I can't really feel their plight. Take this: >Hundreds of miles away, in Minas Gerais State, Dr. Jiménez, 34, found the work rewarding, but also began to harbor feelings of resentment. “You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price?” she said. “You wind up paying for it your whole life.” Is that not the point? The communist government allows anybody to attend their…

There are many problems in Cuba, but what this article is saying is based on pure propaganda. Of course these doctors are not receiving money as they would in the US, this is the whole point of a communist system. In the other hand they didn't have to pay anything for education during their whole life, unlike the US where just a few people have the money and/or opportunity to go to medical school. It is just like goi…

Ehhhh, up to a point.

The thing you're not mentioning is that these doctors don't live in Cuba. They live in capitalist countries in which the government doesn't (even try to) provide X, Y, and Z.

Sure, the doctors got a free education, and that's worth a lot. But at some point they'll have paid off the value of that education and after that point, they're still being taxed at some very high rate and they're seeing no benefit from those taxes because they live in Brazil. Seems like exploitation to me.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#58

Post by varjag »

colomon wrote: post #47
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

You know I can't really feel their plight. Take this: >Hundreds of miles away, in Minas Gerais State, Dr. Jiménez, 34, found the work rewarding, but also began to harbor feelings of resentment. “You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price?” she said. “You wind up paying for it your whole life.” Is that not the point? The communist government allows anybody to attend their…

Okay, just for fun I punched this into a loan calculator. Assume the cost of their medical education is $200,000. (Everything here is USD.) A ten-year loan at 10% interest would require paying $2,643.01 a month. According to the article, the Cuban government is making about $2,700 a month on each doctor in Brazil. So even if you factor in free medical education, it's hard to argue the doctors still owe the Cuban gove…

However the cost of their medical education, while certainly substantial by Cuban standards, is nowhere near that.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#59

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

dpraburaj wrote: post #51
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how they do it after they became doctors and not before.

It's actually weird how many people in capitalist countries look at failed/failing communist states and think of them as utopias, all the while ignoring the plight of millions living there in poverty and with no clear path to a better standard of life. They should put their money where their mouth is and spend at least a few decades in such countries before criticising others who've made a choice to leave(for various…

How much of that is America's doing? If the embargo were lifted, do you still think Communist Cuba would be failing? Its poverty is a result of America's intolerance for different political systems, not the result of those political systems themselves.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#60

Post by panarky »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

You know I can't really feel their plight. Take this: >Hundreds of miles away, in Minas Gerais State, Dr. Jiménez, 34, found the work rewarding, but also began to harbor feelings of resentment. “You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price?” she said. “You wind up paying for it your whole life.” Is that not the point? The communist government allows anybody to attend their…

Earlier this year I visited Cuba and rented a room from cardiologist and his family.

He explained that the results of the Cuban system are mixed.

On the one hand, literacy and life expectancy are way up since the revolution.

On the other hand, cardiologists need to rent rooms to people like me to afford their simple life.

He recognized the deficiencies of their system, but he thought they were outweighed by the benefits.

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