How’s That Socialized Health Care Working Out For You?

If your name is Hugo Chavez and you’re the soon to be ex President of Venezuela, the answer is “Not so good.”

In case you’re wondering, that’s a strike as in a military surgical strike, not the surgeons in Cuba going on strike. Although because the Communists are all about labor strikes against Capitalist War Mongers, try it in a country run by Communists and you’ll find out that their prisons run much more effectively than their hospitals. Not any more pleasant, but more effective.

Americas: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is dying of cancer in Havana, in a live demonstration of Cuba’s vaunted socialized medical care. He went there instead of Brazil because he wanted to make a political statement. What irony.

As party cronies hover at his bedside, Cuban officials bark orders to the government in Caracas, and red-shirted Chavistas hold vigils, all signs are pointing to an imminent exit for the Venezuelan leader who controls a huge part of the world’s oil.

He’s going out exactly as he wouldn’t have liked — helpless and at the mercy of doctors, a far cry from the blaze of heroic socialist glory he might have preferred.

Most galling for him: It didn’t have to happen this way.

His expected demise will be entirely due to his gullibility to leftist propaganda and bad choices that came of it

Apparently unlike their Soviet mentors, the Cubans can’t even run good hospitals for their rulers. At least in Russia if you were high enough in the Communist Party, you’d go to a hospital and get care not available to the Proles. Not so in Cuba where everyone gets sucky care. Pelosi et al, were smart enough to exempt themselves from Obamacare.

According to a 2011 report in the Wall Street Journal, Chavez chose Cuban medical care over the world-class treatment in Brazil for “political” reasons.

“While Mr. Chavez often lauds Cuban doctors, switching from Cuban to Brazilian care would have suggested the Cubans aren’t capable of world class care.

Res ipsa loquitur.

As Chavez dies, Cuba itself may go down too if Venezuela’s energy subsidies end. Cuba’s regime, ironically, might be the last victim of its own foul health system.

In baseball this would be a double play, or as the announcers call it, “A twin killing.” In business this would be a “win win”.

Even Castro was smart enough to go to Spain when he was really sick. Seems his illness was made worse by his Cuban doctors, so he high tailed it to Madrid in 2007 and was cured.