In response to my earlier piece on “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen”, the 1798 law revealing that a number of our founders were more supportive of the notion of mandated health coverage and a government run hospital system than some may have imagined, many have noted that it is not surprising that such legislation would have been signed into law by President John Adams, a noted Federalist who serves as a model for much of what today’s Tea Party finds objectionable. Their point is not wholly unreasonable. After all, it was John Adams who brought us the highly objectionable Alien & Sedition Acts.
However, Washington Post blogger, Greg Sargent, today reports that it wasn’t only John Adams who supported the notion of government run health care. According to Georgetown University history professor and noted historian of America’s early days, Adam Rothman, Thomas Jefferson –the iconic hero of the Tea Party – also supported the legislation.
Sargent reprints the following email he received from Prof. Rothan on the subject –
Alexander Hamilton supported the establishment of Marine Hospitals in a 1792 Report, and it was a Federalist congress that passed the law in 1798. But Jefferson (Hamilton’s strict constructionist nemesis) also supported federal marine hospitals, and along with his own Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, took steps to improve them during his presidency. So I guess you could say it had bipartisan support.
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