Sarah Palin: I Went to Canada for Health Care as a Child

Former Republican vice presidential candidate said on Saturday that as a child growing up in Alaska she "used to hustle on over the border for health care" in Canada.

"My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse," she told a paid audience in Alberta, according to the Calgary Herald. "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."

(The Herald notes that Palin had reportedly previously told a different version of this story in which her brother was treated in Juneau after a ferry trip.)

It is not entirely clear what Palin means by "ironic," though it seems likely she was referencing her apparent belief that the American system is superior to the Canadian system, which offers government-run universal care.

Palin has been a strong and vocal critic of President Obama and Congressional Democrats' health care reform efforts and has deemed reform efforts "evil."