Miami’s Plan to Privatize Cuba’s Healthcare

This week, the Miami Herald profiled “911 Cuba,” a Miami-based initiative to rebuild Cuba’s health system “in the event of political change.”

In an astounding act of journalistic omission, the Herald documents Cuba’s healthcare crisis, while failing to mention the maximum pressure sanctions that have caused it. Meanwhile, Herald reporter Sarah Moreno uses the passive voice to avoid mentioning the U.S. oil blockade by name. She writes that “subsidized fuel deliveries to the island were suspended” while neglecting to explain why.

Moreno's article focuses on how Miami-based businesspeople, non-profit organizations and for-profit medical companies are preparing to take over Cuba’s healthcare system after regime change. 

The notion that Miami's largely for-profit healthcare industry should "rebuild" Cuba's acclaimed universal public health system is farcical. Before years of intensified U.S. sanctions and the oil blockade, Cuba's community-based health system achieved infant mortality rates and life expectancy on par with the United States and Europe, while maintaining one of the highest doctor-to-patient ratios in the world.

To learn more about how Cuba's healthcare crisis has been fueled by maximum pressure U.S. sanctions, watch our film for Al Jazeera Health Under Sanction.