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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’

#21

Post by emodendroket »

nradov wrote: post #6
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…

Cuba is explicitly organized around keeping the Castros and their cronies in power. Propaganda aside, giving everybody a chance to succeed was never an actual organizing principle.

Maybe so but Cuban doctors hardly strike me as an example of people trammeled by the system.

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

#22

Post by bitL »

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…

A typical case of "grass is greener elsewhere" and quitter syndrome. Pretty common in ex-commie countries that expected manna from heaven once they switched their system, then ended up in a shock. It would probably suck if you were confined to the same work/hospital/team most of your life though.

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

#23

Post by emodendroket »

influx wrote: post #11
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…

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.

Yeah no kidding, because they have already acquired skills that will allow them a comfortable lifestyle in the US and don't have to deal with any of the downsides.

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

#24

Post by arethuza »

Angostura wrote: post #17
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…

I think the point is probably this: > But the doctors get a small cut of that money, If the Cuban government were taking something like 10%-20% of salaray, you could see how that would wash. I presume they are taking much more

It's pretty common in professional services contexts for people to be charged out at least 3 or 4 times their salary.

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

#25

Post by OmeCommentLeft »

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…

Replace Cuban doctor with Silicon Valley programmer.

Reveal communist redistributuon to mean almost 95% of your income is given to rural meth head white trash.

I guess you're right. I wouldn't give a fuck about your plight, either.

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

#26

Post by coliveira »

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 going to Cuban managers and saying that they wished to live in a capitalist system where they would made 10 times more than their poor friends. It doesn't make it right.

In other words, this article is trying to attack Cuba for what it did right as a communist country, not for what it did wrong. If this were the worst that came out from Cuba, then it would be pretty close to perfect.

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

#27

Post by seanalltogether »

Am I right in assuming this is very similar to most work abroad agreements? I work for a company AAA that sponsors my visa to work in Brazil. If i want to leave AAA, I must go back to America or find someone else willing to sponsor my work visa? Additionally my company may be charging the client 2x-4x what they pay me.

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

#28

Post by adrianN »

jerkstate wrote: post #14
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…

I think you hit the nail on the head there. In non-communist countries, it is possible to pay off your education debt, and profit from your hard work thereafter. In Cuba, it isn't.

I live in a non-communist country and still got all my education for free. There aren't just two political systems, the American one and dirty communism.

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

#29

Post by ue_ »

mratzloff wrote: post #18
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…

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. Considering the doctors who are able to get into well-paying jobs alone, the American system seems to work better.

Another commenter remarked that the Cuban system is set up to keep the people at the top in power, the American capitalist system less obviously so. I wonder what other methods of Socialist organisation may be explored other than the capitalist wage-labour system we see in both Cuba and the US. The idea of labour vouchers has always been interesting to me.

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

#30

Post by throwawayknecht »

This feels like an awfully insensitive metaphor given Afrocuban history and its role in Castro's revolution.

You might be getting an awfully short end of a stick, but if you're getting free education and free health care at that level, you are not justified invoking slavery as a comparison, given the history there.

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