From Stark:
Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna and his counterparts in 25 other states have mounted a constitutional challenge to the health care reform act on constitutional grounds.
As a recent McKenna press release puts it, the new law contains “the unprecedented and unconstitutional requirement that all Americans must obtain or purchase private health care insurance or face a fine.” (italics added.)
But it turns out that in 1798, the Fifth U.S. Congress approved a measure setting up a health care system for privately-employed U.S. merchant marine sailors. The sailors paid for this health system themselves via mandatory pay deductions. The health system established for that purpose evolved into the U.S. Public Health Service.
So says this post from Forbes blogger Rick Ungar.
Among other things, Ungar notes that members of the Fifth Congress did not have to ponder the intent of the Constitution’s framers. Many of them WERE framers. Ungar’s blog contains links to the 1798 legislation, which takes up one and one-quarter pages. It was a simpler time.
Ken Oplinger, president of the Bellingham-Whatcom Chamber of Commerce and Industry, called my attention to this via Facebook.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any court challenge of any legislative action.
That’s the way the system is meant to operate.
My guess is that The Supremes will turn away the mandate.
It is also interesting that this system worked quite well until 1980, when after the election of a Republican President, the system was abolished.
Folks, that is not how the system worked. Commercial fishermen and Merchant Marines were provided free medical care until 1980. It wasn’t the best care, but if you were patient, you would get to see a doctor.
The medical care was free, because in time of war, the fishermen and merchant mariners agreed to be called up into the Navy or Merchant Marines without a draft. The system worked good for the government when Navies were the primary method of moving men and materials. With the advent of airlift capacity, and smaller conflicts, fishermen and merchant mariners were seldom called up any more, so their free medical was cancelled by Reagan.
Contrary to this writers statement that we were forced to pay for this medical insurance, that is false. It was free. Frankly, even if it was true 100 years ago, he fails to remember that we were considered soldiers, and all soldiers take orders, unlike civilians.
I would not get your hopes to high that the Merchant Marine medical insurance will have any bearing on the healthcare debate.
Sgt., you are probably correct that this won’t have any big impact on the current debate, which has more to do with politics and economic ideology than anything else. But to me it does undermine, to some extent, the argument that the insurance mandate is something that would horrify the founding fathers.
As you and Ungar both point out, the feds of 200 years ago took interest in the health of seamen because they thought it was in the national interest to do so. Constitutional concerns, if any, did not prevail at that time.
When this system was authorized in 1798, it did apparently involve mandatory payroll deductions. This is spelled out in the law that Ungar links to.
Minor point John. The US government was interested the health and welfare of their soldiers, and merchant marines and fishermen were considered soldiers.
That is why the government provided free insurance to them.
By the way, both fishermen and merchant marines did serve in every war with distinction, and simply got their orders in the mail. They never had to be drafted, but were considered on call at any given moment.
So was there any advantage to joining the Merchant Marine instead of the Navy?
It all depends on your definition of penalty (like what is the meaning of is):
“Democrats’ first drafts of ObamaCare all decisively called this penalty a “tax.” Legally, that made sense; few dispute Congress’s authority to tax. But as the unpopularity of the bill grew, fewer Democrats wanted to vote for a “tax,” and President Obama didn’t want to own one.
So Democrats went to plan B. That was to make up an entirely new legal theory—to wit, that the federal government is allowed, under the Commerce Clause, to penalize Americans who do not take part in a specific economic activity (buying insurance).
Put another way, in order to avoid the political inconvenience of a “tax,” Democrats based the very core of their bill on a new and untested legal premise—one that is a far bigger affront to the Constitution than New Deal legislation.
…Knowing how audacious the commerce-clause theory is, Justice has been trying to argue that the penalty is, in fact . . . a tax…
“Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing,” Judge Vinson wrote in October, “after which the defenders of that legislation take an ‘Alice-in-Wonderland’ tack and argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely.” Ouch
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704774604576035810749744494.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Citizen,
The merchant marine in a lot of ways was more dangerous that the warship navy. Unarmed, in a slow boat, and often loaded with either TNT or gasoline. WWII with the U-boats was brutal, and a third of the sailors on the USS Constitution were fishermen from the town of Marblehead Mass. While the USS Constitution survived 42 victorious battles, its decks were still seasoned with the blood of young men.
For that blood, the survivors got medical care and a pager.
Oh yeah I remember now.
The fleet of ships that snapped in two due to faulty welding/design/steel.
Freighters that relied on shear numbers to make any port at all were manned by the merchant marine.
Yikes!
And much of that was under lend-lease and we hadn’t even joined the war.
A good friend of mine was merchant marine during WWll, he would tell me about leaving the Persian Gulf on a ship loaded with gasoline, he joked that their main line of defense was if an enemy got too close and blew them up, maybe they(the enemy) would get blown up too, kinda like a poison frog that kills you if you eat it, the problem is they got ate too!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
That’s funny AFY, my dad did a stint on an MM ship as a gunner’s mate though he was regular navy on his second tour. The ship he was on was carying bombs to the B-29 base at Tinnian. The old timer on the ship (about 22) told him not to worry, if they got hit he wouldn’t hear the explopsion anyway. I have been told those MM ships always had at least a 5 inch gun and a couple fo 50mm.
He tells a great story of being on his way back to Perth and coming out in the eye of a cyclone they had [pounded through only to find a Japanese sub on the surface in the center as well. The torpoedo went wide and it was the only time they got to pound away back in answer.
Shaun my friend, I’s hope they got em, no offense to the Japanese today, but back then it was a life and death experience, don’t ya know.
FYI, this friend of mine had two sons, one became a writer for SI the other became a reporter for a paper in middle earth, this world was fortunate that he made it thru the war to end all wars, IMHO, he left us for better pastures a few years ago, and I loved him dearly!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
My God, a Declaration Signer?
The American politician Elbridge Gerry was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, on the 17th of July 1744, the son of Thomas Gerry (d. 1774), a native of Newton, England, who emigrated to America in 1730, and became a prosperous Marblehead merchant. The son graduated at Harvard in 1762 and entered his father’s business. In 1772 and 1773 he was a member of the Massachusetts General Court, in which he identified himself with Samuel Adams and the patriot party, and in 1773 he served on the Committee of Correspondence, which became one of the great instruments of intercolonial resistance. In 1774-5 he was a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. The passage of a bill proposed by him (November 1775) to arm and equip ships to prey upon British commerce, and for the establishment of a prize court, was, according to his biographer, Austin, “the first actual avowal of offensive hostility against the mother country, which is to be found in the annals of the Revolution.” It is also noteworthy, says Austin, as “the first effort to establish an American naval armament.”