Legal Commentary

An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen

By David Kopel

This 1798 statute (5 Cong. Ch. 77, July 16, 1798, 1 Stat. 605) is currently making the blogospheric rounds as purported proof that the 2010 congressional mandate to purchase health insurance from a private company is based on long-established practice. Incorrect.

Sections 1 and 2 of the act impose a 20 cent per month tax on seamen?s wages, to be withheld by the employer.

Section 3 requires that all the withheld taxes be turned over to the U.S. Treasury on a quarterly basis, and that the revenue shall be expended in the district where it was collected. The revenue shall be spent to support sick and injured seamen.

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. This is a good precedent for programs in which the government imposes a tax and then spends the money on medical programs (e.g., Medicare), but it has nothing to do with mandating that individuals purchase a private product.

Under section 4, if there is a surplus in a district, the surplus shall be spent in the construction of marine hospitals; the executive may combine the tax revenue with voluntary private donations of land or money for hospital construction. The President may also receive voluntary private donations for relief of the seamen, or for operation of the hospitals.

Section 5 instructs the President to select the directors of the marine hospitals. The directors shall make quarterly reports to the Secretary of the Treasury. The directors will be reimbursed for expenses, but will not receive other compensation.

Today, the 1798 Act is viewed as the beginning of the creation of the U.S. Public Health Service.

The Act is very strong precedent for the federal government imposing taxes and dedicating the tax revenue to medical care for the taxed class. Further, the government may provide the medical care directly, or may cooperate with private individuals for the providing of that care. The 1798 Act thus shows that Medicare, while vastly broader in scope than anything from the Early Republic, is generally consistent with constitutional practice of that period.

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.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on April 02, 2010 (boomark / email).