Sarah Palin's family used socialized medicine?

Sarah Palin's recent statement that, presumably during her childhood, she and her family used to cross the border from Alaska to take advantage of Canada's health care system is not really a gaffe or a verbal slipup, but offers an interesting insight into Palin. It is not exactly surprising, or even"ironic," to use Palin's words, that somebody who has made a name, and a great deal of money, for herself by linking health care reform to some kind of socialist bogeyman, used to take advantage of socialized medicine. [....]

A key to Palin's resilience may have been revealed in this latest comment. To Palin it was a throwaway line, good for building a folksy rapport with a Canadian audience. Referring to this as "ironic" is sufficiently cryptic that it is not clear what it even means, but it is clear from her lack of effort to distance herself from this remark that Palin is not really aware of how revealing this admission is. Palin is a complicated political figure, but she may be less of an ideologue than first thought. Clearly, a true right wing ideologue would probably not have made this revelation. The informality of Palin's revelation, and her seeming lack of understanding of what it meant, suggests that for Palin, the right wing populism, while fun and easy, is not really grounded in anything other than the advancement of Sarah Palin.

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. [....]

"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.