Is Cuban healthcare actually good?

Better than average for such a poor country, but hardly a huge success story

(YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images)

The New York Times recently ran a story about Covid-19 overwhelming the hospital infrastructure in Cuba, as it has whenever it’s hit lower-income countries who simply have fewer resources to dedicate to this kind of thing.

The headline describes this as “Overwhelmed by Coronavirus, Cuba’s Vaunted Health System Is Reeling,” and the lede of the story alludes to the fact that the healthcare system was “long a source of national pride” so there’s a kind of particular resonance to these problems. But the story doesn’t really evaluate the claim of whether that national pride is warranted or not, and a reader asked what I think about that. Is the Cuban healthcare system actually impressive?

I think the short answer is “no,” at least if by “healthcare system” you mean what people normally talk about when they talk about the healthcare system in the United States. Cuba does not have, like, tons of secret cures or advanced treatments or lots of great medical equi…