50 days after George Bush faded into oblivion, the Obama Administration has opened the gates to Americans to visit Cuba – once a year for now! Consumer demand will soon build up to such level that it will force unlimited travel to Cuba. How come?

part of my graduate training in the USA, and am fairly familiar with the health care system. It is probably the best in the world – for the very top strata of society. But it is virtually non-existent for a huge number of poor Americans, the number being about 150% of the Canadian population.

Medical bills are huge in the USA. Several years ago, when I stayed with a cardiologist friend in Houston, I was amazed at the obvious wealth around me. We got to discussing medical fees, and I was astonished at how much higher they were than in Canada. Not that physicians’ fees in Canada are poor. Theirs and the lawyers’ are probably the best amongst professionals. And they are very uneven amongst specialists, ranging from an estimated $200/hour to $1500/hour for certain laboratory tests, some of which I myself perform. And yet the hourly minimum wage in the USA is lower than the already abysmal minimum wage in Canada. In other words, if you think that the gap between the rich and the poor in Canada is enormous, the gap in the USA is obscene.

Cuba is offering medical holidays of three weeks, with accommodation, and a full and extensive check up, plus tourist buses to places of interest all for about $3000! And if any pathology is discovered, it is dealt with by a competent medical team, again at low fees. The reason is that the physician to population ratio is much higher in Cuba, in fact seven times higher than in Canada! The per capita GDP of Cuba is only a little higher than the $3000 fee, in fact it is $4,100. The population of Cuba is around 11 million. Let us assume that only 2% of the 50 million uninsured Americans travel to Cuba each year. That would generate 1 million x $3000 = $3 billion.