Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798 - Rick Ungar

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798
Jan. 17 2011 - 9:08 pm

The ink was barely dry on the PPACA when the first of many lawsuits to block
the mandated health insurance provisions of the law was filed in a Florida
District Court.

The pleadings, in part, read -

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either
directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents
have qualifying health care coverage.

State of Florida, et al. vs. HHS

It turns out, the Founding Fathers would beg to disagree.

In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed - “An Act
for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation
of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately
employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.

Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the
intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many
of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.

And when the Bill came to the desk of President John Adams for signature, I
think it’s safe to assume that the man in that chair had a pretty good grasp
on what the framers had in mind.

Here’s how it happened.

During the early years of our union, the nation’s leaders realized that
foreign trade would be essential to the young country’s ability to create a
viable economy. To make it work, they relied on the nation’s private
merchant ships – and the sailors that made them go – to be the instruments
of this trade.

The problem was that a merchant mariner’s job was a difficult and dangerous
undertaking in those days. Sailors were constantly hurting themselves,
picking up weird tropical diseases, etc.

The troublesome reductions in manpower caused by back strains, twisted
ankles and strange diseases often left a ship’s captain without enough
sailors to get underway – a problem both bad for business and a strain on
the nation’s economy.

But those were the days when members of Congress still used their collective
heads to solve problems – not create them.

Realizing that a healthy maritime workforce was essential to the ability of
our private merchant ships to engage in foreign trade, Congress and the
President resolved to do something about it.

Enter “An Act for The Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen”.

I encourage you to read the law as, in those days, legislation was short, to
the point and fairly easy to understand.

The law did a number of fascinating things.

First, it created the Marine Hospital Service, a series of hospitals built
and operated by the federal government to treat injured and ailing privately
employed sailors. This government provided healthcare service was to be paid
for by a mandatory tax on the maritime sailors (a little more than 1% of a
sailor’s wages), the same to be withheld from a sailor’s pay and turned over
to the government by the ship’s owner. The payment of this tax for health
care was not optional. If a sailor wanted to work, he had to pay up.

This is pretty much how it works today in the European nations that conduct
socialized medical programs for its citizens – although 1% of wages doesn’t
quite cut it any longer.

The law was not only the first time the United States created a socialized
medical program (The Marine Hospital Service) but was also the first to
mandate that privately employed citizens be legally required to make
payments to pay for health care services. Upon passage of the law, ships
were no longer permitted to sail in and out of our ports if the health care
tax had not been collected by the ship owners and paid over to the
government – thus the creation of the first payroll tax in our nation’s
history.

When a sick or injured sailor needed medical assistance, the government
would confirm that his payments had been collected and turned over by his
employer and would then give the sailor a voucher entitling him to admission
to the hospital where he would be treated for whatever ailed him.

While a few of the healthcare facilities accepting the government voucher
were privately operated, the majority of the treatment was given out at the
federal maritime hospitals that were built and operated by the government in
the nation’s largest ports.

As the nation grew and expanded, the system was also expanded to cover
sailors working the private vessels sailing the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

The program eventually became the Public Health Service, a government
operated health service that exists to this day under the supervision of the
Surgeon General.

So much for the claim that “The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United
States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty….”

As for Congress’ understanding of the limits of the Constitution at the time
the Act was passed, it is worth noting that Thomas Jefferson was the
President of the Senate during the 5th Congress while Jonathan Dayton, the
youngest man to sign the United States Constitution, was the Speaker of the
House.

While I’m sure a number of readers are scratching their heads in the effort
to find the distinction between the circumstances of 1798 and today, I think
you’ll find it difficult.

Yes, the law at that time required only merchant sailors to purchase health
care coverage. Thus, one could argue that nobody was forcing anyone to
become a merchant sailor and, therefore, they were not required to purchase
health care coverage unless they chose to pursue a career at sea.

However, this is no different than what we are looking at today.

Each of us has the option to turn down employment that would require us to
purchase private health insurance under the health care reform law.

Would that be practical? Of course not – just as it would have been
impractical for a man seeking employment as a merchant sailor in 1798 to
turn down a job on a ship because he would be required by law to purchase
health care coverage.

What’s more, a constitutional challenge to the legality of mandated health
care cannot exist based on the number of people who are required to purchase
the coverage – it must necessarily be based on whether any American can be
so required.

Clearly,  the nation’s founders serving in the 5th Congress, and there were
many of them, believed that mandated health insurance coverage was permitted
within the limits established by our Constitution.

The moral to the story is that the political right-wing has to stop
pretending they have the blessings of the Founding Fathers as their excuse
to oppose whatever this president has to offer.

History makes it abundantly clear that they do not.

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