The First US Health Care Law

 Under our current system, government decisions about health care for Americans has never been about Constitutional limits, government budgets or philosophical ideals.  It's been about the bottom line for business and business people.

Consider an interesting column from Forbes magazine - not what you'd call a left-wing rag.  The article tells about how Congress and the President dealt with ensuring health care for privately-employed Americans in a law passed in 1798.  Yes, that's right, 212 years before Obamacare was signed into law.  This particular law didn't cover all Americans, only sailors on merchant ships.  However, it still provides a clear example of the US Constitution and government mandated health coverage.

The issue began with the question of international trade.  The US government felt international trade was essential for the US economy.  Back in those days, "international trade" for the US meant private merchant sailing ships.  The US had found that international trade via these ships was sometimes interrupted by a lack of healthy, able-bodied sailors.  Sailors were prone to various kinds of injuries in the course of their work and subject to catching tropical diseases during their travels.  The consequences were unacceptable to US business, but they preferred to have others help them take care of it.  Therefore, in 1798, the federal government established hospitals to care for these privately-employed sailors.  And the government mandated that those sailors have deductions from their pay to fund this federal health coverage.

The Forbes article points out that many members of Congress in 1798 had been involved in the crafting of the US Constitution.  The same was true of then-President John Adams.  Based on that, we can conclude if those who wrote the Constitution treated this as acceptable under the Constitution.  Then, so-called "originalists" who claim government mandated health care is unconstitutional either don't know what they're talking about or are telling us it's only constitutional when business asks for it.

One might also note, this 1798 government health care system provided medical care for workers who were injured on the job.  In that sense, this was the first Workers Compensation law in the US.  And it was not administered by private insurance companies, but by the government.

As is often the case, it seems conservatives want to go back to some imaginary Olden Days that never really were.  And even many "liberal" politicians oppose a national health care system or workers compensation run by the government without private companies.  Even, now, 222 years later.  Because, for them, it's a matter of what business wants.

(And, no, those conservative and liberal politicians do not oppose government-run health care systems because of cost.  This Scientific American article presents the evidence that the Canadian health care system provides levels of health care similar to that in the US, but at a far lower per capita cost.)


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