Contrary to what progressives are saying, the individual mandate is unprecedented
Obama's goose-stepping minions are in a panic, grasping for anything to steady their reality-induced vertigo. Liberal blogger Green Eagle linked to an article claiming a 1798 act passed by congress and signed by President John Adams set a legal and constitutional precedent for the individual mandate. Yes, they are so desperate that they are trying to prove that the founding fathers invented socialized medicine.
Obama's goose-stepping minions are in a panic, grasping for anything to steady their reality-induced vertigo. Liberal blogger Green Eagle linked to an article claiming a 1798 act passed by congress and signed by President John Adams set a legal and constitutional precedent for the individual mandate. Yes, they are so desperate that they are trying to prove that the founding fathers invented socialized medicine.
I did a little googling and found a veritable infestation of such articles. All of them are laced with snide little jibes about how devastated we " conservative constitution worshipers" will be upon discovering the constitutional treason committed by the founding fathers, who we worship as gods.
I have a little piece of advice for the Left Blogistanis. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Do some research before running off with the first piece of propaganda that suits your pinched worldview. An unflinching examination of the facts reveal that, as usual, these progressive apologists are mostly full of it.
There is no Individual Mandate in the 1798 Law
The articles citing a precedent for an individual mandate are flat-out wrong, claiming the law mandated "privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance." It clearly does not, so the authors premise is destroyed and thus his argument is invalid.
What the act did was require ship owners to pay a tax to the US Government in order to dock here. The funds were used to set up a network of merchant marine hospitals to care for sailors who worked in a very dangerous profession.
Rick Ungar wrote an excellent article in Forbes Magazine making a similar claim, stating the law sets a precedent for single-payer, government run health care. Unlike the first author, he makes a very good case, but still not convincing.
A commenter made a salient counter-argument that is echoed in other rebuttals:
The opposition is that the Federal government cannot constitutionally force American citizens to purchase services from “PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS”.
The monies collected in regards to the Act in question were not required to be paid to a Private institution; they were required to be paid to agents of the Federal government.The short legal rejection of this argument can be found at the excellent legal site, The Volokh Conspiracy.
So the Act is totally dissimilar to the Obamacare mandate. In the 1798 Act, the government imposes a tax, collects all the tax revenue, and spends the revenue as it chooses.
The Act certainly did not order seamen to purchase any form of private insurance, nor did it order them to purchase any other type of private good. The Act is a solid precedent for federal involvement in health care, and no precedent at all for a federal mandate to purchase private products. (David Kopel)
As Kopel points out, this act could be cited as a precedent for taxation to fund a single-payer medical system run by the US government (socialized medicine), but not for the individual mandate. And that is why, to the hand-wringing liberals' chagrin, the White House did not invoke this argument.
Obamista Liberalism: Intellectually bankrupt and fundamentally dishonest
Lest we believe the founders were proto-socialists, let's dig a little deeper...
Lest we believe the founders were proto-socialists, let's dig a little deeper...
Dig a little deeper and what you will see is that the founders taxed merchant shipping companies that docked here and used the tax to fund hospitals for seamen, who performed a very dangerous job at the time. They were following an older British precedent that pre-dated the founding of our nation.
It is noteworthy that this was not forcing the sailors to purchase something, but a tax on the shipping companies.
It is also notable that the founders did not impose such a scheme on the whole country. No such program existed for farmers, militias or any other group, which makes this a unique circumstance that is being taken out of context.
A better line of argument from liberals would be to use this as a precedent for government socialized medicine, where citizens pay taxes in and get government-provided health care in return. But even that would be a stretch given the limited nature and historical circumstances of 1798 act.
So no, the founding fathers did not engage in socialized medicine, and what Obama and the Pelosicrats are doing is historically unprecedented.
It is noteworthy that this was not forcing the sailors to purchase something, but a tax on the shipping companies.
It is also notable that the founders did not impose such a scheme on the whole country. No such program existed for farmers, militias or any other group, which makes this a unique circumstance that is being taken out of context.
A better line of argument from liberals would be to use this as a precedent for government socialized medicine, where citizens pay taxes in and get government-provided health care in return. But even that would be a stretch given the limited nature and historical circumstances of 1798 act.
So no, the founding fathers did not engage in socialized medicine, and what Obama and the Pelosicrats are doing is historically unprecedented.
