A few liberal writers have suggested that the Seamen Mandate of 1798 provides some sort of constitutional precedent for the Affordable Care Act. Avik Roy helpfully demolishes that myth here.
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24 thoughts on ““A History Seminar: Obamacare Has Nothing to Do with Seamen Mandate of 1798””
What Greg said. I don’t have bones with the whole article but two points:
> 1. The 1798 act was about national security, not health
> care policy
I’m not sure why this matters. Particularly since his very next point is that it’s about commerce. So, if universal health care could be demonstrated to have national security implications, it would pass that test? Okay, there are pandemic diseases. Overruled!
> 3. The 1798 act was an employer mandate, not an
> individual mandate
This sorta implies that an employer mandate isn’t unconstitutional?
As the article points out, the nation at the time derived most of its income from trade, and trade security was indeed a matter of national security. The modern equivalent would be requiring the Navy to provide health care for sailors (as opposed to paying them more and expecting them to handle it themselves.) And this is in fact what the Navy does.
“…if universal health care could be demonstrated to have national security implications, it would pass that test?”
Hey, yeah, or maybe we could show that health care was a matter of Interstate Commerce. Don’t we have some kind of Clause about that?
“This sorta implies that an employer mandate isn’t unconstitutional?”
And–again, as the article points out–the employer mandate in Obamacare is not being challenged.
Yup it is an , at best, imperfect analogy. The ACA and the Seaman bill are different in significant ways. However it does suggest dealing with health care is not foreign to the federal gov, the sainted founders were just fine with telling people what to do and there are times when the state has to step in to deal with things.
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