What Does This Say About Cuban Health Care?

Cuba's running out of toilet paper.

Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said on Friday.

Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis and three destructive hurricanes that struck the island last year.

Cuba's financial reserves have been depleted by increased spending for imports and reduced export income, which has forced the communist-led government to take extraordinary measures to keep the economy afloat.

"The corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper," an official with state conglomerate Cimex said on state-run Radio Rebelde.

The shipment will enable the state-run company "to supply this demand that today is presenting problems," he said.

I know what you're thinking.

They're going to have to adopt the Sheryl Crow approach (collective EWWWW).

After all these decades, the regime in Havana will still fight reality at every turn. They'll fight tooth and nail to impose their way with prices on basic goods and services, exacerbating shortages with price controls. Just when you thought that Cuba's situation couldn't get any worse, it finally hits the crapper.

And what does this say about the so-called vaunted Cuban health care system. If they can't even maintain stocks of toilet paper, how can they be providing even adequate health care? Once again, the lie of Cuban health care has been revealed. Sure, everyone has access to "health care" and it's "free", but the reality is that it's substandard (except for those who come to Cuba via medical tourism, and which generates significant income for the regime).