In 1798 John Adams signed a bill mandating the purchase of health insurance.

[Bonhomme Richard]

I just don't get the hubbub about it now. Not that I am a fan but this has certainly been done before.
"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."
"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."
And in, of all places, Forbes Magazine
http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

[no limit]

1. And in 1830 Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act

Whats your point?

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. If it isn't obvious then you wouldn't understand anyway. n/t

[no limit]

6. No it's not obvious. Are you saying that because the founding fathers signed something...

...that automatically makes a law passed 200 years later that is not in any way comparable valid?

[Bonhomme Richard]

13. The point is that congress mandating the purchase of

health insurance is not new and, more importantly, this law was signed by the writers of the constitution and they didn't seem to have a problem with the legality.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Statistical]

17. Also it wasn't even insurance is the current sense of the word.

Merchants who CHOSE to use American ports were required to pay a fee.
The revenue from those fees funded government hospitals to benefit sailors.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[slackmaster]

2. The bill mandated that employers buy insurance for sailors as a condition of using US ports

Not that every individual in the country buy health insurance. Essentially the collection of a duty, which Congress is empowered to do.

False equivalence is false.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29099806/Act-for-the-Relief-of-Sick-DisabledSeamen-July-1798

BTW 20 cents was a lot of money back then.

[Bonhomme Richard]

7. Beg to differ.

"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."

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

[no limit]

10. Except that it didn't subsidize healthcare.

It established a general fund which every sailor had to pay in to in order to use US ports.

Not comparable to the healthcare law in any way, shape, or form. If anything it's closer to having to buy car insurance, not being forced to buy healthcare.

[Statistical]

11. You can beg all you want it doesn't change the fact.

The current law is a mandate with penalties for ALL individuals to purchase for profit insurance from 3rd party private companies.

The bill in the OP founded a government run program and funded it by charging companies fees to access US ports.

[slackmaster]

14. It seems to me the government was trying to cover a cost of doing business

Collecting money up front to ensure that the costs of providing care to sailors were offset by companies who received benefit from that care, in the form of sailors who were able to sail.

[no limit]

8. Thank you +1

[Myrina]

16. Yep, this was debunked when he posted it a couple weeks ago too.

:hi: Thanks!

[Bonhomme Richard]

23. "He" never posted this before. n/t

[Bonhomme Richard]

20. "which sum he is hereby authorized to retain out of the wages of such seamen."

The seamen paid for the insurance..not the shipowners.

[slackmaster]

21. Fair enough, so the payment was a condition of employment

I'm glad you posted it, Bonhomme Richard. The topic is interesting, and I hadn't heard about it before now.

[Joanne98]

4. Good catch

[miscsoc]

5. I wouldn't be surprised if the likes of Glenn Beck dismissed Adams as a proto-socialist

He seems to find Washington's administration a bit modern for his tastes, after all.

Incidentally, to the poster, my home village has the distinction of having had its pilot kidnapped by the USS Bonhomme Richard in 1779 (according to Wikipedia, although I read something like that elsewhere)

[Statistical]

9. So many false comparisons

1) It was a govt run plan similar to Social Security and Medicare
2) The "insurance" was paid for by private companies who wanted access to US ports
3) There was no penalty. If a company wanted to not participate they could simply not operate in US ports.

Hardly comparable to the current legislation.

[enlightenment]

12. The author of that piece is conflating

'health insurance' and 'health care' - in his title and first paragraph. He then provides the facts in the body:

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.

*emphasis mine

What that law did was establish - as he points out - a system of 'free at point of contact' (paid by tax contributions) health care. It has JACK ALL to do with paying for private, for-profit health insurance that does not provide health CARE - only, and in embarrassingly poor fashion - limited access to that care.

There is no comparison and the conflation makes his point worthless.



edited to correct html error and extra word

[blindpig]

19. Yeah, the same guy who was for property qualifiations for voting.

Nice.

Those dudes were looking out for the rich from the gitgo.

[girl gone mad]

22. Did you ever consider that, maybe, if you have to dig this deep and stretch this hard..

to find legal precedent for forced participation in private markets, well, maybe it's not such a good plan?

[coti]

24. Probably the best response on this thread.

These efforts illustrate well just how unprecedented the mandate is.

[Bonhomme Richard]

25. My own view is that single payer is the only way to go but...

I came across the article and thought it was interesting. Didn't know that I was poking a skunk.