Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care -- admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada's single-payer system.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"

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.

Officials at several hospitals in that area declined to give out information on patient visits.

Know something we don't? E-mail us at [e-mail]

Comments

[heretocomment]

You must have been so distracted by the rabid squirrel like way this 'story' was fizzing at you lips, that you didn't bother to play some basic math games before posting. Aren't you a cute little blogger! Since Palin was reminiscing about the 60's (when she was, yeah, about 2) it might be important to recognize that Canada's luxurious single payer health care system really took into effect in 1984. But don't worry just because this story is ridiculous and her hair makes you feel inferior. I'm sure you'll latch onto something else that'll give your ego a spin. (yes that's a reference to your elitism)

By the way, where can I find on the huffington post the article about Canada's Premier coming to the US for open heart surgery... I wonder where everyone with money will go for health care once you're all done basking in our emulation of Canada?

[UBUIBIOK]

, "isn't that ironic?"

[david conrad]

Much like everything that old huff-n-puff reports on, this is out of context, full of holes, and just an out and out lie. The left are still threatened by this capable woman. She's not even a public official anymore and they continue to attack her. What a pathetic display. The left now control both houses, the legislature, and the whitehouse,(albeit illegally), and they still whine and complain and attack anyone with enough sense to think for themselves, because, inevitably, those who do will prevail and the left will lose miserably...again.

[TalkingOutLoud]

Yawn....

[JPR47]

If Palin and/or her family crossed the border specifically to get free health care, she commit a fraud. Essentially, she stole money from the tax payers in Canada.

[mmonarch]

She was 6, Canada did not have single payer in the Yukon then. It was also the closest health care to their home and Sarah couldn't drive the car herself then. Geez. Take it up with her old man.

[elvis9999]

President Obama evidently believes that he can solve any problem with a speech. But he really does not care whether what he says is true or not, nor does he feel any responsibility to honor the assurances and promises he makes. As a result, this nation is now in a position where it cannot believe a word that he says, and that amounts to an unprecedented crisis of confidence in the Presidency. Democratic government will atrophy if we allow lying on this scale to count as the business as usual of politics. When will the press and the Congress hold him accountable?

[elvis9999]

Candidate Obama promised that his administration (unlike his predecessor’s) would be so transparent that TV cameras (C-Span) would be there for key deliberations; but an unprecedented level of secrecy prevails as the final stages of Obamacare are negotiated behind closed doors and kept so secret that even the Senate majority whip admitted that he had no idea what was going on. Requests for Obama to honor the promise of C-Span cameras are being ignored.
* To gain traction for his attempt to return a would-be socialist dictator in Honduras to power, Obama claimed that he had been overthrown in an illegal coup; but the congressional research service pointed out correctly that ex-President Zelaya had been removed for constitutionally sufficient cause by legal and constitutional means.
* Obama claims that he wants a public option only to increase choice and competition; but the House bill would clearly reduce choice both by squeezing unsubsidized private health plans out of the market, and by setting rigid conditions on acceptable plans that would narrow available options.
* Candidate Obama claimed that violent radical Bill Ayers was just another guy in his neighborhood; but the record shows that the two had worked closely together.
* Obama assured us that his stimulus bill would create or save a million jobs; but he was claiming as fact what could never have been more than a wild (and highly improbable) guess, and his more recent attempts to justify that guess have been fraudulent.

[crease]

Dude aour giving the real King of rock and roll a bad name........Tell your GOOPers to get out of the way so we cab get done to right this sinking ship do to the GOOPers and their mishaps the last eight years.

[elvis9999]

Obama has repeatedly assured the American people that if they like their current health plan they can keep it; but the House bill which he supported created huge incentives for employers to drop their coverage and shift their members to a public option.
* Obama has just as often assured the public that under his health plan everyone will be able to keep their current doctor; but many are certain to lose their doctors when ObamaCare’s large cuts in Medicare funding induce more doctors to withdraw from Medicare coverage, as they also would were employers to transfer patients to a public option to save money.
* Obama assured a joint session of Congress that his health plan would not fund illegal aliens; but his allies had been busy voting down amendments to that effect. (This was the point of Joe Wilson’s outburst.)
* Obama claimed that Caterpillar’s CEO had told him that Caterpillar would begin hiring again as a result of the stimulus bill; but that individual immediately announced that he had said no such thing, and that Caterpillar would in fact be laying off more workers.
* Candidate Obama promised that Guantanamo would be closed by January 1, 2010; but it is still open.

[cernst151]

If you would actually read the bill (sorry, it's a LAW now) there isn't even a public option available. Please explain how they're going to force people to buy into a public option if there isn't even one in the law. Also, there are explicit restrictions for illegal aliens. Under our current system, hospitals have to serve illegal aliens in emergency rooms. This will give them an alternative.

The Caterpillar CEO is on tape saying that he would hire more people if this passed. He backtracked shortly after.

Guantanamo bay would be closed if the GOP didn't keep blocking funding with asinine claims like we're going to release these people on the streets or that Super MAX prisons aren't secure enough to hold them. Nobody has ever escaped from a US Super MAX prison. They're just people, they're not Magento.

In other words, how about you actually learn what's going on instead of just repeating Genn Beck rants.

[elvis9999]

Candidate Obama promised bipartisanship and an end to partisan bickering; but in a display of especially ruthless partisanship his allies have shut Republicans out of all key meetings on his health care initiative, with the unprecedented result that domestic legislation of historic importance garnered not a single Republican vote in the Senate.
* Candidate Obama criticized his opponent’s plan to tax employer paid healthcare benefits, and promised he would not tax them; but the bill he now backs will do just that.
* Obama had promised that he would not sign a healthcare bill that would add one dime to the federal deficit; but the bill he now backs adds trillions in new federal spending, offset only by new sources of revenue that are both uncertain and more properly seen as offsetting the already existing deficit.
* Obama coerced congress into passing his stimulus bill by promising that if it were passed unemployment could go no higher then 8%; but unemployment is now at 10%, and he could not possibly have had good reason to exclude that possibility.
* Obama promised that his cap and trade legislation will create jobs; but its massive tax increases will certainly hobble the economy and destroy jobs, while green jobs in significant numbers can at best be hoped for, but never promised.

[elvis9999]

* When campaigning Obama criticized bills before the congress that were too long for anyone to be able to read and promised to stop that; but the bills he has been backing throughout his first year are infinitely longer (2000+ pages) than the ones he criticized.
* Candidate Obama promised an end to the corruption of earmarks and pork, but in the bills he has supported this year there have been more and bigger earmarks than ever before.
* Candidate Obama promised us that CIA personnel involved in the interrogation of terrorists would not be prosecuted; but his administration is now doing exactly that.
* Obama assured a joint session of Congress that the health bill he supported (pre-Stupak) would not provide public funding for abortions; but bitter resistance on the part of House Democrats to inclusion of language to that effect soon proved that it did.
* Candidate Obama promised that he would make sure that there was always enough time for the public to read legislation before it was enacted; but he has done exactly the opposite, repeatedly pressing for even faster passage of even longer bills.
* Candidate Obama met fears that he would be a tax and spend liberal by promising, emphatically and repeatedly, that those earning under $200,000 would see no increase in their taxes of any kind; but he now urges passage of a healthcare bill that breaks that pledge in many different ways, and his unrestrained increase in federal spending makes more tax

[lobear00]

Get a life!!

[elvis9999]

During his campaign for the presidency and since, Obama repeatedly assured us that he would protect Medicare against cuts; but he now presses for passage of bills that include savage cuts in Medicare.
* To obtain passage of his first stimulus bill, Obama assured us that 90% of the jobs created would be in the private sector; but as he well knew, most of them were to be in the public sector.
* Early in the health care debate, Obama assured us that he had not said that he favored a single payer system; but he was on record as having said exactly that.
* Obama gave primary voters a firm assurance that if he became the nominee of the Democratic party he would (unlike Hillary Clinton) abide by the campaign finance limits of public funding; but as soon as he became the party’s nominee, he reneged on that pledge.
* During the presidential campaign Obama criticized the presence of former lobbyists in the Bush administration and solemnly assured us that he would appoint no lobbyists to his administration; but once elected he proceeded to appoint even more lobbyists than his predecessors.
* Obama criticized the size of George Bush’s deficit and promised to stop deficit spending if elected; but he has already quadrupled the size of the deficit he objected to and recklessly continues new federal spending in the trillions.

[eliteliberal]

response to kwi: As we know the founding fathers created this system purposefully to move glacially slow. That was not only to protect me from people like you, but to protect you from people like me; in other words, to not let the passions of the people dictate policy. Of course, that cannot stop movements, when there is a complete shift in the psyche of a people, or when not enough change has happened over an extended period of time, then things shift.

Of course I would love to see tougher clean air AND WATER rules. Of course we want things like Gitmo to close faster and this war to end. However, because of their nature, these things will move slowly. There's obvious safety concerns and massive logistical cogs that need to be oiled to get the large, "change is scary" machinery to begin moving in this direction.

Understanding opposing views is always enjoyable, so thanks for the inspiration. I will write the White House regarding Gitmo, however I'm a little confused about the health care remark.

You do realize that the democrats ARE actually trying to pass health care reform and if this were a republican administration this wouldn't be happening? You do realize this is historic? Because of all the noise, it's hard to see how truly wonderful this is. It's our first step in seeing health care as a right and not a privilege. It is the beginning of a Human Rights movement.

Feel the love...

[eliteliberal]

What I think is fantastic is that the only person here that is filled with the most aggressive, hateful language, at least at the moment, is kwi and elvis. It's not Palin that people are responding to. She's a symbol. (And I don't know if you understand the difference.) Here's a repost:

I know that I will not change who you like or who you believe in, just like I know that no matter how many creams I buy, diet pills I take, hamburgers I eat, or sodas I drink that a single product will make me younger, skinnier, happier or live life more fully. Those are gimmicks, out to sell a product. However, I do know that there are people out there who do buy those things with those expectations and are in a cycle of disappointment when these things do not manifest themselves without the consistent work that's required to be healthy and live a better of quality of life. That requires work.

Bush and Palin are representations of the gimmick, the easy way towards real goals. That's a very different way to live, it's a very different world view. Palin is a gimmick. Bush was a gimmick. Here is a man who spent A THIRD of his presidency on vacation. He came from a privileged family and had the worst terrorist attack in history during his watch. I'm tired of gimmicks. Not only are they laughable, if unchecked, they can be dangerous.

[eliteliberal]

Yes, we are all aware of the intellectual prowess of the former governor, it was a thing of beauty to behold during the election. All sarcasm aside, if you think that Sarah Palin possesses the skill to pick her words carefully and to carry out a carefully constructed plan, then you must have been in awe of Bush. But since you are carefully following her career and hanging onto her every word, you do realize even she admits to the 'irony' of getting heath care in Canada. You don't really need to cover for her anymore, she's already admitted to the hypocritical nature of the situation.

As far as accusing liberals of being crazy, I think your buddy elvis999 proves where the crazy is.

[ejhickey]

Did she or her family receive free care or did they pay for it? If you say they got the services for free, how do you know? Do you even know the name of the facility where her family received treatment? there are many conclusions being made about but very few facts support any of the conclusions.

[CJWebber]

Elite didn't say the services were got for free; doubtless, they paid for it. There was only one spot to get emergency services in Whitehorse and that was the hospital. There was just one.

The hypocrisy that everyone here is going on about is not whether or not they paid for it. It is the fact she continually derides the medicine of Canada even though a 'socialist' doctor fixed up her brother's burn and, undoubtedly, prescribed 'socialist' antibiotics.

[elvis9999]

Crazy for posting facts? That's what you do here. Insult the person. Is that something that you learn at liberal college, or is it simply a character issue or a requirement to become a progressive?
Blame Bush, call all Republicans ,how did you put it, " uneducated, etc. etc." Name calling is real mature, but that's what's done here.

By the way , I haven't seen rebuttal against the BO broken promises. All that is said is....Bush, Bush, Bush. I can post dozens more if you are finished correcting the ones that I posted earlier.

I thought you would be one who could discuss facts, but I was way wrong.

[eliteliberal]

Now you're defensive. I'm not sure how going to college plays into the discussion, but I do know how the term "crazy" got thrown in - that was from kwi. He took it to that level, so I'm responding.

I said UNDEReducated, not UNeducated. And there is such a thing, but of course you don't have to work within a system to become educated. There are many people who are incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, productive, and creative who have not gone to college. Make no mistake, those people read a great deal, practice consistently, and have a type of discipline that is extraordinary. Again, it would be naive to lump too many people together and make a blanket statement about "them."

I think a lot of people have made a decision not to respond to each of your posts because the quantity says a lot about your personality. No offense, and you actually may not be aware of this, but you have a frothing-at-the-mouth way of wanting to be 'right' that illustrates everyone's points here better than we could ever do.

[kwijibo]

Sarah Palin was a child at the time and barely age two when single payer health care was enacted throughout Canada. As non-Canadians, the Palins (her parents in this case) would have been billed for the care they received. Betcha didn't know that!

Some people say they "love" how Sarah Palin gets progressives and liberals stirred up. I mean if you ever want to see a progressive go absolutely nuts, get absolutely unhinged (not that it ever takes much of an effort), just mention Sarah Palin's name. They just absolutely can't leave her alone, even though she holds no power, no political office.

"Her followers scare me!" say some progressives. To which I say, not nearly as much as her absolutely bonkers detractors scare any reasonable and dispassionate observer. Just keep it coming, though. Every column inch about Palin is just more free publicity and therefore more money into her pocket and the pockets of those she supports - just knowing that is enough to drive progressives and liberals off the deep end.

Palin's comments were well-planned to not only drive progressives even crazier than they already are but to rally her supporters. Home run on both counts.

[elvis9999]

Feel the Love here?

[JoeLuca]

Kwiojibo - right on! I was about to make the same points. It's funny how pertinent information is buried at the end of the article or even omitted by her detractors. This is a non-story. Why are the liberals/progressives so afraid of her?

I must confess, however, that I am guilty of a little schadenfreude when I see the progressives running around desperately trying to run her down.

[CaoDaiOne]

What a absolute fool! I'll bet you still think the world is flat, car emissions don't damage the environment, "drill baby drill" is cool idea, and torture should be routine.

[elvis999]

If Sarah gets you liberals mad , read these facts below about our "leader".
If you, any of you , read these few snippets of the quality of the one who you put in office and can't be a little upset yet, froth at the mouth over something that Sarah Palin's parents did when she was a child, you need help.

These are just a fraction of the lies and broken promises from the one who promised change. Change? yep we're getting change alright. About 2cents.

And as you did after each Sarah post, please spend as much time replying to each post to "debunk" these documented occurrences.

And these are just some of the ones that we know about.

I await your onslaught of insults and adolescent remarks.

[cyberfringe]

troll