Alaskans sought Yukon health-care deals: MDs
Last Updated: Thursday, March 11, 2010 | 5:59 PM ET
CBC News
Sarah Palin, pictured in Hong Kong in September, says her family crossed the border into the Yukon for medical treatment in the 1960s. (Jeff Topping/CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets/Associated Press)The Canadian public health-care system enjoyed by Yukoners has been used frequently over the years by neighbouring Alaskans such as former governor Sarah Palin's family.
The Yukon's health-care system came into the international spotlight this week after Palin admitted her family once travelled across the border from Skagway, Alaska, to Whitehorse for medical treatment in the 1960s.
Palin's admission, made during a speech in Calgary on Saturday night, prompted critics to attack the former Republican vice-presidential candidate for using a public health-care system she has demonized in the past.
In Whitehorse, some longtime physicians say they've treated thousands of Americans from southeast Alaska who find Canada's medical rates lower than what they would pay at home.
That practice was slowed down about a decade ago, when insurance companies advised Yukon doctors they might not be covered for out-of-country patients.
"In fact, when these services stopped being provided up here, there was quite an outcry from these [Alaskan] communities," Dr. Wayne MacNichol, a Whitehorse obstetrician, told CBC News on Wednesday.
Whitehorse-based doctors still handle medical emergencies from Alaska. Yukon hospital rates for Alaskan patients are currently about $3,200 a day, doctors say.
"It's still a lot cheaper, but we're not seeing near the numbers that we saw five, six years ago," said Dr. Sally MacDonald, a veteran physician in Whitehorse.
'Zooming over the border'
In her Calgary speech, Palin said she was a child in Skagway, near the Yukon-Alaska border, when her brother needed medical attention for a burned ankle.
"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," Palin said. "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?"
Neither MacDonald nor MacNichol would comment specifically on Palin's anecdote.
MacDonald said she recalls Alaskans paying as little as $400 not long ago to have a baby delivered in the Yukon.
"The Whitehorse hospital did recognize, finally, that these people were getting an unbelievable deal, and things did change," she said.
"It's just much easier access, especially if you're pregnant and trying to get to Juneau to have the baby," added MacNichol.
With files from The Canadian Press
