The Plum Line - Newsflash: Founders favored "government run health care"

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/01/founding_fathers_favored_gover.html

Newsflash: Founders favored "government run health care"
By Greg Sargent

Forbes writer Rick Ungar is getting some attention for a piece arguing that
history shows that John Adams supported a strong Federal role in health
care. Ungar argues that Adams even championed an early measure utilizing the
concept behind the individual mandate, which Tea Partyers say is
unconsittutional.

I just ran this theory past a professor of history who specializes in the
early republic, and he said there's actually something to it. Short version:
There's no proof from the historical record that Adams would have backed the
idea behind the individual mandate in particular. But it is fair to
conclude, the professor says, that the founding generation supported the
basic idea of government run health care, and the use of mandatory taxation
to pay for it.

Here's the background. Ungar points out that in July of 1798, Congress
passed "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seaman," which was signed
by President Adams. That law authorized the creation of a government
operated system of marine hospitals and mandated that laboring merchant
marine sailors pay a tax to support it.

Ungar argues that this blows away the argument made by many opponents of the
individual mandate: That it's unconstitutional to mandate that all citizens
purchase health coverage, or that this violates the founding fathers' view
of the proper role of government.

Is this true? In some ways it is, according to Adam Rothman, an associated
professor of history at Georgetown University. He argues that it's a "bit of
a leap" to compare the 1798 act directly to the individual mandate, because
the act taxed sailors to pay for their health care, rather than "requiring
that sailors purchase it."

But Rothman says that it's perfectly legit to see shades of today's debate
in that early initiative.

"It's a good example that the post-revolutionary generation clearly thought
that the national government had a role in subsidizing health care," Rothman
says. "That in itself is pretty remarkable and a strong refutation of the
basic principles that some Tea Party types offer."

"You could argue that it's precedent for government run health care,"
Rothman continues. "This defies a lot of stereotypes about limited
government in the early republic."
Also: Some have argued that the individual mandate is, in effect a tax, but
one that cuts out the Federal government as middleman. In this reading,
everyone will eventually participate in the health system anyway, and the
mandate means the Federal government is merely directing people to buy
insurance, rather than collecting a tax and using that money to purchase
that same insurance for them.

We will never know whether the founding generation would have agreed with
this concept or not. They didn't agree on much even among themselves. But in
Rothman's view, they are already on record supporting government run health
care, financed by mandatory taxation. So there!

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