Comrade Sanders Is Wrong.

• Author: Tupy, Marian L.
• Position: POLLING PLACE - Bernie Sanders' views about Cuba's education and health-care system

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS of Vermont, vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, sang Cuba's praises in a recent "60 Minutes" interview. Sanders applauded Cuba's education and health-care system. Potential Sanders supporters should know that Cuba's literacy rate and health-care system are nothing to lionize.

First, consider literacy. According to Sanders, "When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing?" Sanders surely is old enough to know that all Communist dictatorships throughout history have ensured that their people were literate--in part so that they might take in the disinformation printed by government propaganda ministries.

Furthermore, a look at the data reveals that all of the progress regarding literacy that occurred under communism in Cuba almost certainly would have taken place under a different political and economic system as well. While trustworthy data, defogged of Cuban propaganda, is difficult to come by, the U.S. Department of State tried to do just that by comparing improvements in human well-being in Cuba between the 1950s (the last decade of the hated Batista regime) and 2000.

Accordingly, Cuba's literacy rate rose by 26% between 195053 and 2000, but literacy rose even more, by 37%, in Paraguay. Food consumption in Cuba actually declined by 12% between 195457 and 1995-97. It rose by 19% in Chile and by 28% in Mexico over the same time period. Between 1954-57 and 1995-97, the rate of change in car ownership per 1,000 people in Cuba declined at an annual rate of 0.1%. It increased at an annual rate of 16% in Brazil, 25% in Ecuador, and 26% in Colombia.

Next, consider health care. Sanders repeatedly has extolled Cuba's health-care system, opining that Castro "gave [the Cuban people] health care, totally transformed the society, you know?" Yet, a recent study has found that Cuba's seemingly impressive health performance is partly due to data manipulation and coercion. Life expectancy is the best proxy measure of health. According to Cuba's official data, it rose by 25% between 1960-2017. Yet, life expectancy increased even faster in comparable countries: in Mexico it improved by 35%; in the Dominican Republic, 43%; and in impoverished Haiti, 51%.

The data makes clear that Cuba's education and health-care systems are unremarkable. Cuban-Americans and others familiar with Castro's record are rightly...