I don't know what the current case is under Bush, but when I was in there in 2003, Cuba wasn't completely cut off from the US. Families were still allowed to fly in from Miami, and there were tourists skipping customs scrutiny by going through Puerto Rico, although the majority of tourists were Canadian or European. There was also a Texan I met in the cigar shop in Havana on an "agricultural mission".
Cuba is missing out on some basics, but it's more to do with what their economy is based on (tourism and sugar for the most part) rather than its having an embargo from one neighbor, which the rest of the world ignores. There are other countries in the region with more drugs, crime, and Disneyesque like tourism cities than Cuba (that said Cubans still don't have basic rights and freedoms). I enjoyed travelling to Havana to see an old Spanish colonial city, not a sea of extravagant hotels.