Is US Cuba policy becoming partisan - and about to change?

 Shutdown handmaidens Marco Rubio (L) and 

Ted Cruz (R) are both sons of Cuban exiles

Time was when US policy towards Cuba crossed the Party divide. There were always a good number of Democrats who supported the embargo policy and there were always a lot of Republicans who opposed it.  It may still be the case that some on each side differ on the issue, but my guess is that the matters is becoming more partisan, with the Demorcratic Party or at least this Democratic President becoming increasingly interested in easing aspects of the embargo and the Republican Party getting itself more and more entrenched in an pro-embargo 'let's crush Castro' position.
Why do I believe this? Well, first of all there was the meeting last Friday in Miami in which President Obama met with the now 'moderate' wing of the emigre community (as manisfested in the Cuban American National Foundation) and made the loudest noises yet that it is time for Cuba policy to evolve and adapt to the times. This blog by Arturo Lopez Levy explains how and why the President's words were significant in this regard. By calling the current US policy anachronistic, Obama is voiciung IN office what erstwhile Presidents and Secretaries of State have hitherto only dared to say AFTER vacating the White House.
This all makes for clear water between the President (and his Cuban-American Democratic supporters in Florida) and the the congressional Republican and Cuban-American right. The gulf has opened up since the showdown over Obamacare and the embarrassing stand-off that shut down the US government for weeks. Why? because it just happens that the two most fervent supporters of the Republican strategy to attack Obama on this issue were yes, you guessed it, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz: two Cuban-American senators who as this blog highlights are deeply "embittered." It could be that these two have shot themselves in the foot.
How ironic it will be if it transpires that by trying to take a political dagger to Obama's heart on his health care plan, these two senators have hardened that heart enough for its owner to wish to exact a revenge...As Lopez Levy argues it is within the President's power as the executive to make huge changes to the embargo without having to have Congressional approval. Could we be about to witness the long overdue change in US Cuba policy that we have been waiting for?

Brazil is adding 3,000 Cuban doctors this week to the 2,400 Cuban doctors already in the country since September under the Mais Médicos program, according to this article in The Cuba Standard.
This exceeds the previously announced number by 1,400; more Cuban doctors may be contracted to reach the ambitious goals of the program. Revenues for Cuba at the current level of staffing are estimated at $250 million per year.
In May, the Brazilian government announced it would contract 6,000 Cuban doctors, but it backtracked as local physicians joined a wave of street protests in summer. Then, the Brazilian health ministry and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) announced Aug. 21 to contract 4,000 Cuban doctors as a backbone for a fast-expanding medical program in needy regions of Brazil.
“As long as there are Brazilians without a doctor, we will continue to bring professionals into the program,” Health Minister Alexandre Padilha said in a communiqué Nov. 5. “Mais Médicos is a first step towards a major transformation of healthcare in the country.”
With the arrival of the additional Cuban doctors this week, the program will include 6,600 professionals, the health ministry said, adding that it wants Mais Médicos to grow to nearly 13,000 doctors by March 2014. The health ministry has had a hard time finding enough Brazilian doctors to fill the spots.
Brazil agreed to pay Cuba, via PAHO, $4,000 per doctor each month, of which the doctors will receive a part. The Cuban doctors are contracted collectively through the Cuban government for three-year terms, to fill “vacancies not chosen by Brazilian and foreign professionals” in individual recruitment efforts under Brazil’s Mais Médicos programme, a press release by Brazil’s health ministry said.
The PAHO-Brazil agreement is a major breakthrough for Cuban efforts to diversify its for-pay medical service exports. While service exports a decade ago surpassed tourism as Cuba’s largest hard-currency generator, by far most of the healthcare exports are under agreements with oil-rich Venezuela. More than 20,000 medical personnel from Cuba work in Venezuela, or in third countries under programs funded by Venezuela.
Just weeks after the Brazil agreement, Ecuador announced in September it would contract 1,000 Cuban doctors for $30 million a year. Nov. 15-18, a delegation from Trinidad and Tobago will be in Cuba to negotiate contracting “scores” of Cuban doctors and up to 135 nurses.
 Recently, Cuba has been expanding more limited medical service programs in South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Portugal and Algeria. Norway and Brazil have funded medical relief efforts involving Cuban doctors in Haiti.