Michael Moore's movie "Sicko" keeps getting praise, even though some of it just isn't true—like his suggestion that Cubans get better heath care than we do. In the film Moore takes a group of "gringos" to Communist Cuba for treatment.
The hospital they're taken to appears cleaner and more orderly than many U.S. hospitals, with semi-private rooms, crisp, clean sheets, state-of-the-art equipment and top-notch doctors.
Now I've been to hospitals in Cuba, and they don't look anything like this one. I can only guess that what we're shown in "Sicko" is reserved for the Communist hierarchy and foreign VIPs.
In two Cuban hospitals I visited, the lack of the most basic materials was pathetic. Hospital personnel were begging me for anything I had that could be used to help the sick. One hospital asked me for dental floss because they'd run out of suture material.
But in "Sicko," Cuba has it all. One of Moore's companions needs a specialized $150 inhaler. She walks into a Cuban pharmacy and—voila!—she easily finds the inhaler. In fact, she buys three for about 5 cents each!
Now, it seems very strange that this particular type of inhaler just happens to be within easy reach of the first Cuban pharmacy they walk into. I've been to Cuban pharmacies where it's tough to get aspirin.
Joseph Stalin used to take naïve journalists around to Potemkin villages to show them how wonderful communist achievements were. It turned out the villages were just cardboard facades.
The truth is that communism didn't work then and it doesn't work now. It's too bad that journalists are just as naïve as ever.
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David Asman is the host of "Forbes on FOX" which airs on the FOX News Channel, Saturdays at 11 a.m. ET.
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