Tempest in a teapot: "Sarah Palin's family sought health care in Canada"

Yeah, it was splashed across the headlines that Sarah Palin's family utilized health care in Canada.  Read the article.  They really had no choice, and it was not their first choice...but it was their only choice.

The real story appeared in the UK Telegraph yesterday:


Sarah Palin has raised questions over her staunch criticism of state health care after the former Alaska governor admitted her own family used to "zoom" over the border to get treated in Canada's hospitals.

By Tom Leonard in New York

Published: 1:14AM GMT 10 Mar 2010

Sarah Palin has criticised Mr Obama's health care reform proposals Photo: EPA The former Republican vice presidential candidate has been a frequent critic of big government and has lambasted Barack Obama's health care reforms as ushering in socialised medicine, denouncing his plans as "downright evil".

But during a weekend speech in Calgary, she revealed that her family used medical care in Whitehorse, the capital of Canada's Yukon Territory, decades ago.

Sarah Palin quits as governor of Alaska in surprise moveShe also criticised the publicly funded system saying that it should be dismantled in favour of free enterprise.

Mrs Palin, who moved as a child to the south-eastern Alaska town of Skagway, was speaking at an event sponsored by the Fraser Institute, a conservative Canadian think tank.

However, she did acknowledge the irony of her comments.

"Believe it or not - this was in the sixties - we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse," she said.

"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."

Chuck Heath, Mrs Palin's father, said they had had little choice but use the Canadian facilities given Skagway's location.

"There was no road out of there at that time. The ferry schedule was very erratic. We had no doctor in Skagway," he said.

"The plane schedule was very erratic. The winds dictated whether the planes could come in or not."

He said his family probably took the train to the Whitehorse hospital only twice - once when his son burned his leg and again when a daughter had rheumatic fever.

Mr Heath also stressed that they had "much preferred" to use US medical facilities as his insurance did not cover any treatment in Whitehorse....

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