Quoting Russell Coker (russell@coker.com.au):
If you look at the CIA world fact book you'll see that Cuba and the US are very comparable in terms of life expectancy while Australia is far ahead. I think it's really impressive that Cuba does so well given that US sanctions prevent the sale of medical supplies and the training of medical staff.
Cuba suffers from crippling economic sanctions from US government because they are petulant about their failed invasion - and generally about the fact that Cuban citizens got a say in choosing their own government (yes a violent revolution is a way for people to choose their own government).
I've been trying to get over to Cuba for a tourist visit for quite a few decades, and think it is more than likely to finally happen within the next couple of years. (Throough the dark years of the Ronald Reagan presidency and a bit beyond, the USA government actively attempted to prevent US citizens from going there with a few exceptions such as athletes and artists. Reagan's contribution: a Treasury Department regulation asserting that US citizens spending their -own- money in Cuba violated the embargo legislation. This, in turn, was a conservative workaround to counteract Jimmy Carter's order that US passports cease being marked as 'not valid to visit' a list of countries the State Department disliked.) Many of the harsher measures against political dissent have started to be eased under Raul Castro's direction, and it's contining to be an interesting place.