posted March 08, 2010 11:14 PM         

Not only do you not know the right answers, you don't know the right questions to ask yourself before jumping off the high dive into an empty pool.

I'll help you with the questions.

What year was Sarah Palin born?

What year was the Socialist Single Payer health care system instituted in Canada?

When you've answered those questions you will arrive at the conclusion..or at least logical, reasonable people will...that Sarah Palin and her family did not take advantage of Canada's Socialist Single Payer health care system when she was a young girl...and that your sources are a bunch of empty headed morons.

posted March 09, 2010 06:53 AM         

By 1961, all ten provinces had agreed to start HIDS Act programs. In Saskatchewan, the act meant that half of their current program would now be paid for by the federal government. Premier Woodrow Lloyd decided to use this freed money to extend the health coverage to also include physicians. Despite the sharp disagreement of the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons, Lloyd introduced the law in 1962 after defeating the Saskatchewan Doctors' Strike in July"
..."Medical Care Act in 1966 that extended the HIDS Act cost-sharing to allow each province to establish a universal health care plan. It also set up the Medicare system."

since miss cara boo was born in 64 that gave her plenty of time to experience socialized healthcare as a GUEST of canada - not even paying into the pot!!

posted March 09, 2010 08:06 AM         

The thrust of your argument is that Palin is a hypocrite...who supposedly sought health care from the Canadian Single Payer system when she was a girl and now rips the system which treated her...and her family.

Your argument is not true and couldn't be true...as you would have discovered if you had examined the basic facts of Palin's birth date and the date of inception of the Canadian Single Payer health care system.

posted March 09, 2010 12:37 PM         

"Medicare (French: assurance-maladie) is the unofficial name for Canada's publicly funded universal health insurance system[1]. The formal terminology for the insurance system is provided by the Canada Health Act and the health insurance legislation of the individual provinces and territories.

Under the terms of the Canada Health Act, all "insured persons" (basically, legal residents of Canada, including permanent residents) are entitled to receive "insured services" without copayment. Such services are defined as medically necessary services if provided in hospital, or by 'practitioners' (usually physicians).[2] Approximately 70% of Canadian health expenditures come from public sources, with the rest paid privately (both through private insurance, and through out-of-pocket payments). The extent of public financing varies considerably across services. For example, approximately 99% of physician services, and 90% of hospital care, are paid by publicly funded sources, whereas almost all dental care is paid for privately.[3] Most doctors are self-employed private entities.

Tommy Douglas is commonly known as the father of medicare, and was instrumental in its first implementation in the province of Saskatchewan. His groundwork, along with the future aid of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson helped to make medicare a national entity from... 1966" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(Canada)

posted March 09, 2010 02:15 PM         

"Canada Health Act
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Canada Health Act (CHA) is a piece of Canadian federal legislation, adopted in 1984, which specifies the conditions and criteria with which the provincial and territorial health insurance programs must conform in order to receive federal transfer payments under the Canada Health Transfer. These criteria require universal coverage (for all "insured persons") for all "medically necessary" hospital and physician services, without co-payments."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Health_Act

posted March 09, 2010 02:36 PM         

if she wasn't going for totally free she was going at half the going rate IN CANADIAN DOLLARS no less...which are less valuable to begin with

posted March 11, 2010 10:48 AM         

The thrust of your argument...that Sarah Palin is a hypocrite because her parents sought health care from Canada when she was a girl...and there wasn't s single doctor in the Alaskan town where they lived IS one of the worst bullshiiit arguments I've seen here. However, bullshiiit arguments from leftists are as common as grains of sand on a beach.

March 11, 2010
Sarah Palin's family used socialized medicine?
Danny Huddleston

Lincoln Mitchell is on his high horse over at Huffpo reveling in the supposed hypocrisy of Sarah Palin. How could she? That's right, Sarah Palin's family used Canada's health care system a couple of times when she was a child. How can we continue to criticize Obamacare when the most popular conservative woman in America was hiding such a damning family secret? Mitchell writes:

"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."

Mitchell is surprised that Sarah didn't try to hide this story. He believes that "a true right wing ideologue would probably not have made this revelation". Projection anyone? Pundits on the left are so used to their politicians being disingenuous, that when they come across a conservative who just tells the truth, they assume that the conservative politician must be stupid.

Why don't we inject a few facts to clear things up? As usual we have to point our browsers across the pond to get the whole story. From the UK's Telegraph:

"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.

Huffpo readers are only getting one side of the story. Now that we have all the facts and the statements of Sarah's father, this story is a non-issue.

What's really news worthy is the fact that it's so rare for Americans to go to Canada for medical care. The flow of patients is normally going the other way. Hundreds of heart patients have come across the border to America for angioplasty and just recently a famous Canadian politician traveled all the way to Florida for a specialized heart procedure that was apparently unavailable in Canada's "highly regarded" health care system.

posted March 11, 2010 04:03 PM         

quote:

---

The flow of patients is normally going the other way. Hundreds of heart patients have come across the border to America for angioplasty and just recently a famous Canadian politician traveled all the way to Florida for a specialized heart procedure that was apparently unavailable in Canada's "highly regarded" health care system.

---

Just saying

juni

------------------
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted March 11, 2010 04:58 PM         

six on one side - a half dozen on the other!

it was sarah palin who said it was "ironic" given her recent stance on socialized medicine that she went to canada for healthcare when she was young. so if people jumped to the wrong conclusions she has only to take the foot out of her mouth. again.

and actually i have heard of plenty of doctors and patients crossing northwards to get medicines at a reasonable price...despite the cost of the trip!!

posted March 11, 2010 11:19 PM         

There's really no cure for Derangement Syndrome. Those afflicted, leftists in general, simply transfer their hostility to the next target.

posted March 12, 2010 01:53 PM         

i just met a canadian client who was born there in 1967 PAID FOR BY THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT AND NOT BECAUSE HER FOLKS WERE POOR but because universal healthcare was already in place then.

so as i suspected, though the CANADA HEALTH ACT may have been passed in 1984 it basically was an umbrella act that tied together all the as yet loose threads of a health system ALREADY IN PLACE WHEN SARAH PALIN OR HER DAD TOOK ADVANTAGE OF IT.

a good point in the first piece AG posted (written by a canadian who has lived here awhile) is that THOSE CANADIANS TRAVELLING TO THE US ARE DOING SO UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THEIR CANADIAN health insurance, in other words, the government pays not the patient.

in fact it is FULL of good points made by someone who knows BOTH systems, canada and the us, all of which pretty much VACATE jwhop's propaganda.

posted March 12, 2010 02:13 PM         

Did you read your own link?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Health_Act#Health_insurance_before_the_CHA

Under the sections titled: Health insurance before the CHA and Change in fiscal arrangements: the 1977 act

posted March 12, 2010 03:02 PM         

"By the start date (July 1, 1958) five provinces—Newfoundland, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia - had programs in place which could receive the federal funds. By January 1, 1961, when Quebec finally joined, all provinces had universal coverage for hospital care" (BC being alaska's closest neighbour in canada...)

posted March 15, 2010 05:05 PM         

I imagine those to our north with dibilitating diseases very much appreciate not having to sell thier homes for thier medical care funding.

if it were not for this issue, i would consider becoming a republican at this point.

blue cross and the bunch blame the hospitals and doctors for their over charging, which is very true. that little box of kleenex you did not ask for? 8 bucks. yes, you can get softer stuff at rite aid for 79 cents...but chances are, you will have the 8 dollar box they give ya. it needs to be completely done away with, not reformed with the same mold. reasonable and customary needs new definitions for starters. everybody in this f-in nation mismanages their money and expects to pass it on to the next fool to make up the difference. problem with that is, the next fool has been drained too.

posted March 16, 2010 10:11 AM         

I sold life, health and accident insurance for some years. An insurance policy is a "Contract" katatonic in which, for a certain sum of money paid as specified in the policy/contract an insurance company agrees to assume the financial risk associated with health, life or accident risks.

The terms of the policy are very well spelled out in the policy/contract and are binding on insurance companies.

Exclusions in the coverage are also very well spelled out...such as "pre-existing" conditions. But the exclusions for "pre-existing" conditions only run for a year or sometimes 2 years after which the "pre-existing" condition is then covered like any other risk which is being insured against.

It strains credibility to suggest a person/family was medically insured, racked up a bill of $90,000 and only $2,000 was paid by the insurance company.

There are only 2 circumstances I know which would permit this.

1. The insured lied to the insurance company about elements of their state of health when they made application for coverage.

2. There was a known...by the applicant, or unknown by the applicant a "pre-existing" condition at the time application was made.

In both cases, the insurance company has the option to cancel the policy...AND return all the insurance premiums paid by the insured.

In almost all "Major Medical" health insurance policies, the insured agrees to pay the first 20% of major medical costs after which the insurance company pays the other 80%...up to the policy limits.

I simply don't believe you or the party who related this tale to you.

Beyond an action/suit in a civil court, there is also binding arbitration where both sides tell their story and the decision of the arbitrator is binding on the parties.