UPDATE (via Michelle Malkin): “The Smoking Gun has the Treasury Department letter to Moore detailing the trade embargo, travel regulations, and licensing requirements Moore failed to meet before traipsing into Cuba.”

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Earlier this year, for the filming of his next work of fiction, Michael More took 10 U.S. citizens to Cuba for some of world-class Cuban health-care (but, hey…it’s free! If you don’t mind waiting 9 months to see a doctor…).

Well, according to the US Treasury Deptpartment, Mike didn’t have the proper authorization to circumvent the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba:

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by the AP.

“This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba,” Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore.

I’m sure Mickey — despite not having the proper authorization — will claim that it’s just the Bushitler administration “harassing” him and attempting to “censor” him.

Why is it when Lefties break the law, it’s never their own fault?

If Moore did go to Cuba without proper authorization, then he broke the law. It’s not “harassment” for the Treasurey Dept. to investigate and prosecute those who have broken this law.

If he did have proper authorization, then all he has to do is produce it, and this story is over today.

As to anybody who actually believes that Cuba’s health care system is a “model” for anything, I’d seriously encourage you to move there and give it a try for a few years. I’d be interested to hear your findings.

If it doesn’t kill you.

(This article from THE MEDICAL SENTINEL — The Official Journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, states that only 25% of Cuban-trained physicians pass the medical exams required to practice in the U.S., and that the infant mortality rate of children in Cuba from 1 to 4 years-old is 34% higher than the U.S.).

Read what Fred Thompson has to say about the myth of Cuban health care.

The Cuban American National Foundation has this article titled Health Care in Cuba: Myth Versus Reality:

Health Care in Cuba: “Medical Apartheid” and Health Tourism

Of course, not everyone in Cuba receives substandard health care. In fact, senior Cuban Communist Party officials and those who can pay in hard currency can get first-rate medical services any time they want.

This situation exists because the Cuban Government has chosen to develop a two-tiered medical system–the deliberate establishment of a kind of “medical apartheid”–that funnels money into services for a privileged few, while depriving the health care system used by the vast majority of Cubans of adequate funding.

Following the loss of Soviet subsidies, Cuba developed special hospitals and set aside floors in others for exclusive use by foreigners who pay in hard currency. These facilities are well-equipped to provide their patients with quality modern care.

I’m sure that the hospitals and physicians that Moore visited and filmed were the best that Cuba has to offer. Unfortunately, it won’t show the real health care that the rest of Cuba is condemned to.

h/t to George at Stuck on Stupid