[ExI] How to get a healthy country

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 16/10/2007, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting article here:
> <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4025>

> OK, Japan, France, Iceland and Sweden, fine.
>
> But Cuba???? How did they do it?
> Cuba is a poor country and when people get sick, medicines and medical
> equipment are often in short supply.
>
> Their answer is low-tech preventive medicine. And it works.
> They have more doctors per capita than any other country.
> So better child care produces low infant mortality.
> Lots of doctors means early detection and prevention.
>
> And, being poor, they can't afford the American diet.

Note also that all these countries apportion the finite health budget
according to need, or (equivalently in the ideal case) according to
where it will do most good. That requires centralised planning.
Unfortunately, some nations' ideological aversion to centralised
planning gets as much in the way of an optimal outcome as other
nations' ideological commitment to it does.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou