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Palin's claim family sought medical care in Canada prompts scrutiny, ridicule
Posted: Mar 10, 2010
Mon Mar 8, 11:08 PM
By Lee-Anne Goodman, The Canadian Press
WASHINGTON - Sarah Palin's weekend admission that her family once travelled to Canada to receive treatment under the public health-care system she's so often demonized prompted skepticism and ridicule Monday among her critics in the United States.
"My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse," the former Alaska governor said Saturday night during a speech in Calgary.
"Believe it or not - this was in the '60s - we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing, and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn't that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada."
Always a popular whipping girl among liberal blogs and news sites, Palin was swiftly derided for the comments Monday as the news reverberated through and beyond the U.S. capital.
A headline on the New York media blog Gawker.com read: "Sarah Palin Supports Government-Run Health Care, Inadvertently Uses 'Ironic' Correctly."
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post suggested Palin was a hypocrite.
"The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada's health-care system as revolting, with its government-run administration and 'death-panel'-like rationing," Stein wrote.
"Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska."
There were also doubts about the veracity of her story.
In a 2007 report in the Skagway News, Palin said her family travelled south from the town by ferry to Juneau, Alaska, so that her brother could get treatment after burning his foot when jumping through a fire.
"All these years later, that's still what people have to rely on here in some instances," said Palin, who was Alaska governor at the time and pledging to improve the town's ferry system.
One Alaska-based political blog, The Mudflats, wondered - tongue firmly planted in cheek - whether Palin's brother suffered a burned foot on more than one occasion and she was simply mixing up two different but extremely similar incidents.
"Or perhaps the story was simply tweaked to tell people what they want to hear, while utilizing the perennial 'I'm one of you' meme - a great way to 'connect to the audience' while skirting those pesky things known as 'facts,"' the blog reads.
An email to Palin officials requesting more information about her family's voyages to Whitehorse for medical treatment wasn't immediately answered on Monday.
The remainder of this article can be found at:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100308/health/health_us_cda_palin_health
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Palin's blunder?? - mrs.krabs
[ In Reply To ..]It was probably the closest and best medical care they could get in rural Alaska in the 1960s. It's not like they could easily travel to the lower 48 States to get medical care. I think she is an honest person to a fault. She has not learned to spin and lie her way through politics yet.
Well, which was it: Canada or Juneau? (sm) - Nikki
[ In Reply To ..]She spun the same yarn about her brother, but the location changed from Juneau by ferry to Canada, so which is it?
It looks like Canada's healthcare system worked okay for her when her family was the beneficiary of it, but she would deny other Americans the same kind of system.
It's just like Rush Limbaugh "threatening" to move to Costa Rica if healthcare reform happens in the USA, another place where there is "socialized" medicine.
She isn't poor, little naive Sarah. She's "death panel" Sarah. She's on FOX, for crying out loud! Can she lie? You betcha! And this is a perfect example of it.
Oh Canada - sm
[ In Reply To ..]Palin Condemned for Medical Decisions Her Parents Made When She Was Five
By Aaron Goldstein, on March 9th, 2010
Her parents' actions when she was five make her a hypocrite.
Perhaps it's a case of cause and effect.
Sarah Palin speaks. Liberals foam at the mouth.
Sadly, it's a condition for which there is no known medical treatment.
The latest outbreak of this condition broke out after Palin spoke in Calgary, Alberta over the weekend. During her speech, she disclosed that her family used to seek health care in Canada's Yukon Territory during her early years in Alaska.1 Palin told her audience:
Believe it or not – this was in the '60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing, and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn't that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.2
When word of Palin's remarks came to the attention of the liberal media they immediately started showing frothing symptoms. Sam Stein of The Huffington Post was patient zero:
The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada's health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and 'death-panel'-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.3
Where does one begin?
Well, I think it's fairly safe to presume that five-year-old Sarah Heath was not in charge of making the family's medical decisions. When Chuck and Sally Heath took their children to receive health care in Canada it was a country that was in the midst of Trudeaumania. The Guess Who was its most popular rock band while Bobby Orr and Serge Savard were its best hockey players. Let's just say a lot has changed in Canada in the intervening four decades up to and including Canada's health care system.
Canadian Medicare was in its infancy in the mid-1960s. It was in 1966 when Canada's Parliament passed the Medical Care Act to provide coverage for doctors' services. Although the federal government set the standards it was left up to the provincial and territorial governments to administer the program.4 Not all jurisdictions joined the program right away. The last hold out would not join until 1972. That holdout was none other than the Yukon Territory.5
Simply put, at the time Sarah Palin's parents sought medical treatment in Canada, the Yukon Territory was not part of the Medicare program. But even if the Yukon had been integrated into Canada's health care system, since the Heaths were U.S. residents they presumably would have been required to pay a fee for any medical services obtained in Canada. Indeed, the U.S. Embassy's Consular Services advises Americans planning to travel to Canada, "Tourists and temporary visitors do not qualify for this health care plan and should have their own insurance to cover medical expenses."6
Now Palin's critics might have had a point had she sought medical treatment for herself or her family in Canada while she was Governor of Alaska. Alas there is no evidence she ever took that route. But we do have an instance of a Canadian Premier who recently sought medical care in the United States.
Last month, Newfoundland & Labrador Premier Danny Williams traveled to Florida to undergo a heart procedure that was unavailable in his province.7 Williams, a Progressive Conservative, makes no apology for his decision. "This was my heart, my choice and my health," said Williams after the procedure had been completed.8
Naturally there were those who criticized Williams' decision to seek medical care outside of Canada. Amongst them was Dr. Wilbert Keon, a retired heart surgeon and currently a Conservative member of the Canadian Senate. While Keon concedes Williams could not have had the procedure done in Newfoundland & Labrador, he argues that the Premier could have had the procedure done in several Canadian cities including Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. "I can't imagine anything that couldn't be done in Canada that is done in America."9 However, it is also worth noting that Keon did not state when it could be done in Canada.
In 1976, Keon founded the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.10 How long do cardiac patients in Ottawa wait for bypass surgery? According to the latest data available by the Ontario Ministry Health, the wait time for heart bypass surgery at the University of Ottawa's Heart Institute is eleven weeks.11 Suppose Williams had sought care in Ottawa? What if he ended up bumping someone on the waiting list that was in greater need of care? He would have been accused of obtaining preferential treatment by jumping the queue. Williams was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.
The same holds true for Sarah Palin. Remember when Barack Obama defended his association with Bill Ayers by stating he was only eight-years-old at the time Ayers engaged in domestic terrorism?12 Well, it's nice to know the liberal media holds Sarah Palin to a higher standard of conduct when she was five-years-old then when President Obama was eight.
Endnotes
1. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/sarah-palin-sees-eye-to-eye-with-albertans-in-calgary-speech/article1492634/
2. http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5imco-mAvOiSY_uN3u7iWTwodvvJA
3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/08/palin-crossed-border-for_n_490080.html
4. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0003658
5. http://www.canadiandoctorsformedicare.ca/e-rounds/e-rounds14.pdf
6. http://www.consular.canada.usembassy.gov/medical.asp
7. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/02/02/nl-williams-heart-010310.html
8. http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5h0QC7bditrEb3wYz_6_b-gsGGDxA
9. http://www.darkdaily.com/newfoundland-premier-danny-williams-heart-surgery-in-the-u-s-triggers-debate-on-healthcare-in-canada-224
10. http://www.uottawa.ca/services/markcom/gazette/000331/000331-art08-e.html
11. http://www.health.gov.on.ca/transformation/wait_times/public/wt_public_mn.html#
12. http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/04/17/fact_check_on_clinton_attacks.php
Oh Sarah. Seeking health care then or now is not the rub. - It is the hypocrisy of it all.
[ In Reply To ..]that gets so tiring.
Paying for the fees is not the issue either. It's a question of ACCESS to any care, anywhere, whether it be 1960s Yukon Territory, 2007 Skagway or throughout the entire lower 48 in 2010, rural AND urban, all 46 million of them who go without.
We put ourselves out there as leaders of the free world and promote ourselves as the richest, most advanced nation on earth. However, we rank #37 in terms of health care (based on preventable deaths, healthy life expectancy, health care delivery performance, and total expenditures). Numbers 1 through 36 are:
France, Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Malta, Singapore, Spain, Oman, Austria, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Monaco, Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Colombia, Sweden, Cyprus, Germany, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Morocco, Canada, Finland, Australia, Chile, Denmark, Dominica, and Costa Rica.
People. Dominica and Costa Rica do better, and by the looks of it, these are primarily socialists systems in one form or another.
Palin and her ilk would rather die than admit this fact, and strive to keep our jingoistic status quo to the detriment of us all. We deserve better than this.
Thank you!! (nm) - Nikki
[ In Reply To ..]:-)
Hear! Hear! - EXCELLENT POST
[ In Reply To ..]Couldn't agree with you more!
Outstanding post! Could have not said it better - myself! nm
[ In Reply To ..]nm
Good article - who knew
[ In Reply To ..]the rabid left could stoop so low, but again it is expected.
I have the cure - it is called a - Palinectomy
[ In Reply To ..]She is a hypocrite. Period.
I have a better idea than a Palinectomy - You should bill
[ In Reply To ..]Sarah Palin for renting space in your heads.
excuses, excuses for this bimbo - Her 15 minutes are UP
[ In Reply To ..]:-(
Who cares Really, dont we have a much BIGGER - problem for the next 3 years? duh.nm
[ In Reply To ..]nm
Love it! - Sam
[ In Reply To ..]Also the majority of Alaskans are conservative Republicans...and Alaska is the 3rd biggest welfare state. Bottom line, in most cases if you're talking to a Republican, you're talking to a hypocrite!
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