{"id":3139,"date":"2011-02-21T20:48:20","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T00:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/?p=3139"},"modified":"2011-02-21T20:48:20","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T00:48:20","slug":"breathing-a-vein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/?p=3139","title":{"rendered":"Breathing a Vein."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“Breathing a vein”, Bloodletting, Phlebotomy: drawing copious amounts of blood \u00c2\u00a0– that pesky “extra” blood buildup – by having an artery punctured with a lancet, the blood gushing like a geyser into a bowl.<\/em><\/p>\n

From Rick Ungars Policy Page posted on Forbes,<\/a> 1\/17\/11. \u00c2\u00a0Etchings by James Gillray,<\/a> 1804<\/p>\n

The ink was barely dry on the PPACA when the first of many lawsuits to block the mandated health insurance provisions of the law was filed in a Florida District Court.\u00c2\u00a0The pleadings, in part, read –<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

State of Florida, et al. vs. HHS<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It turns out, the Founding Fathers would beg to disagree.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In July of 1798, Congress passed \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and President John Adams signed – \u00e2\u20ac\u0153An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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.\u00c2\u00a0Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.\u00c2\u00a0And when the Bill came to the desk of President John Adams for signature, I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to assume that the man in that chair had a pretty good grasp on what the framers had in mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how it happened.<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During the early years of our union, the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaders realized that foreign trade would be essential to the young country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ability to create a viable economy. To make it work, they relied on the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s private merchant ships \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the sailors that made them go \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to be the instruments of this trade.\u00c2\u00a0The problem was that a merchant mariner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s job was a difficult and dangerous undertaking in those days. Sailors were constantly hurting themselves, picking up weird tropical diseases, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The troublesome reductions in manpower caused by back strains, twisted ankles and strange diseases often left a ship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s captain without enough sailors to get underway \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a problem both bad for business and a strain on the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economy.\u00c2\u00a0But those were the days when members of Congress still used their collective heads to solve problems \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not create them.\u00c2\u00a0Realizing that a healthy maritime workforce was essential to the ability of our private merchant ships to engage in foreign trade, Congress and the President resolved to do something about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Enter \u00e2\u20ac\u0153An Act for The Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>A “Gentle Emeitc” is puking to restore balance to the body.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

I encourage you to read the law as, in those days, legislation was short, to the point and fairly easy to understand.\u00c2\u00a0The law did a number of fascinating things.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wages), the same to be withheld from a sailor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pay and turned over to the government by the ship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s owner. The payment of this tax for health care was not optional. If a sailor wanted to work, he had to pay up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is pretty much how it works today in the European nations that conduct socialized medical programs for its citizens \u00e2\u20ac\u201c although 1% of wages doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite cut it any longer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c thus the creation of the first payroll tax in our nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When a sick or injured sailor needed medical assistance, the government would confirm that his payments had been collected and turned over by his employer and would then give the sailor a voucher entitling him to admission to the hospital where he would be treated for whatever ailed him.\u00c2\u00a0While a few of the healthcare facilities accepting the government voucher were privately operated, the majority of the treatment was given out at the federal maritime hospitals that were built and operated by the government in the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest ports.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the nation grew and expanded, the system was also expanded to cover sailors working the private vessels sailing the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The program eventually became the Public Health Service, a government operated health service that exists to this day under the supervision of the Surgeon General.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So much for the claim that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for Congress\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 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.\u00c2\u00a0While I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure a number of readers are scratching their heads in the effort to find the distinction between the circumstances of 1798 and today, I think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find it difficult.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>A “Physick” is used to Purge the body of harmful toxins through pooping.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, the law at that time required only merchant sailors to purchase health care coverage. Thus, one could argue that nobody was forcing anyone to become a merchant sailor and, therefore, they were not required to purchase health care coverage unless they chose to pursue a career at sea.\u00c2\u00a0However, this is no different than what we are looking at today.\u00c2\u00a0Each of us has the option to turn down employment that would require us to purchase private health insurance under the health care reform law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Would that be practical? Of course not \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just as it would have been impractical for a man seeking employment as a merchant sailor in 1798 to turn down a job on a ship because he would be required by law to purchase health care coverage.\u00c2\u00a0What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more, a constitutional challenge to the legality of mandated health care cannot exist based on the number of people who are required to purchase the coverage \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it must necessarily be based on whether any American can be so required.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly, \u00c2\u00a0the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s founders serving in the 5th Congress, and there were many of them, believed that mandated health insurance coverage was permitted within the limits established by our Constitution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The moral to the story is that the political right-wing has to stop pretending they have the blessings of the Founding Fathers as their excuse to oppose whatever this president has to offer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

History makes it abundantly clear that they do not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> January 21- Given the conversation and controversy this piece has engendered, Greg Sargent over at The Washington Post put the piece to the test. You might be interested in what Greg discovered in his article, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Newsflash: Founders favored government run health care.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Breathing a vein”, Bloodletting, Phlebotomy: drawing copious amounts of blood \u00c2\u00a0– that pesky “extra” blood buildup – by having an artery punctured with a lancet, the blood gushing like a geyser into a bowl. From Rick Ungars Policy Page posted on Forbes, 1\/17\/11. \u00c2\u00a0Etchings by James Gillray, 1804 The ink was barely dry on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,127,128,280],"class_list":["post-3139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colonial-medical-care","tag-founding-fathers-health-insurance","tag-founding-fathers-medical-health","tag-revoultionary-period-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}