Rick Ungar on Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798.
Ungar claims that:
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.
This interesting, but a little misleading, at least as far it relates to the constitutional litigation. All the law did was to impose a tax on seamen that would then be used to fund government hospitals for such seamen. That is not directly relevant to the claim that the health care mandate is unprecedented as a regulation of commerce.
Posted at 12:56 AM