Sarah Palin Loves Socialized Health Care (When She's Paying For It)

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told an audience of Canadians this weekend that she used to “hustle” over the border to get her some of that cheap socialized medicine she now decries. Also, she can define irony correctly!

Palin, who called “nationalized” health care “evil” and suggested that, instead of reforms to lower costs, the government ought to just cut taxes, admitted that her family used to avail themselves of the cheap, high-quality health care Canada offers its citizens. According to Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent, she said:

We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic.

Weigel notes that the closest Canadian city to Wasilla, Alaska — where Palin grew up after infancy — is more than 15 hours away, whereas Anchorage is less than an hour.

In somewhat better news for Palin fans, she can correctly identify examples of irony when it suits her: patronizing a nationalized health care system because it is of similar quality at far less expense than the extremely expensive, bureaucratic one that leaves many Americans — including 18.2 percent of Alaskans while Palin was governor — without insurance after which you attack plans to reform the latter system by denigrating the former is irony. So there’s that, at least.

[Additional examples of irony not mentioned by Sarah Palin include how bad the state health care system in Alaska while she was governor and the fact that Bristol Palin’s son Tripp is covered by a nationalized health care plan in the form of the Indian Health Services plan despite Palin’s financial ability to procure him some fancy private sector insurance.]

Palin: Growing Up, I ‘Hustled Over the Border’ For Health Care [Washington Independent]

Related: Statement on the Current Health Care Debate [Sarah Palin’s Facebook Page]
Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care [Wall Street Journal]
Number and Percentage of People Without Health Insurance Coverage by State Using 2- and 3-Year Averages: 2005-2006 and 2007-2008 [U.S. Census Bureau]
Palin Leaves Behind Mismanaged AK Health Care System – Hundreds Die Waiting For Care [Crooks & Liars]
Court Documents Reveal Palin’s Grandson Sses Socialized Medicine [Raw Story]