Reply #241: Sarah Palin

[murphyj87]

OTTAWA — Sarah Palin should listen to her mother.

That was the advice from one MP Tuesday following the former U.S. vice-presidential hopeful’s revelation that her parents had sought medical treatment from the Canadian health-care system she has so often criticized.

“Of course her parents chose Canada for health care, it’s the best health-care system in the world,” said NDP health critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis. “Too bad Sarah Palin doesn’t realize it now.”

The comment came after Palin told a Calgary audience Saturday night that her family had first-hand experience with Canada’s health-care system when she was growing up in Skagway, Alaska, near Whitehorse.

“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,” Palin was quoted as saying by The Canadian Press.

Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, who is also a doctor, said the Palin family’s story is not unique.

“Certainly as a family doctor I treated lots of Americans.”

When she testified before a U.S. Senate committee in September, Bennett told the story of a U.S. Vietnam veteran who had to go to Canada for cancer treatment because he couldn’t afford medical care in the country he fought for.

Bennett said Palin should bear in mind the high cost of medical care is a leading cause of bankruptcies in the U.S.

“Criticizing our system isn’t helping her fellow Americans.”