I just found out that in 1798, the fifth congress passed and President John Adams signed into law "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen" authorizing the creation of a marine hospital service, and mandating privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance.

I guess now President John Adams was a tyran who took away Amercans' freedom or even worse, he was a "SOCIALIST". I wonder if the teabaggers will now scream that President John Adams didn't know the US Constitution. After all, he "just" help writing the US Constitution, Glenn Beck or other T-Baggers are more experts of the US Constitution than John Adams was.

You should read this article titled Our Founding Father's Socialized Healthcare System . As mentioned in this article, the law signed by John Adams was a federal government socialized healthcare insurance funded by a tax, that was withheld from the sailor’s pay, and then turned over to the government by the ship’s owner. This legislation also created America’s first payroll tax amounted to slightly over 1% of the sailor’s wages.

In fact, a ship’s owner was required to deduct 20 cents from each sailor’s monthly pay and forward those receipts to the service, which in turn provided injured sailors hospital care. An injured or sick sailor would make a claim, his record of payments would be confirmed, and he would be given a "chit" for admission to the local hospital. Some of these healthcare facilities were private, but in the larger ports Federal maritime hospitals were built. A failure to pay or account properly was discouraged by requiring a law violating owner or ship's captain to pay a 100 dollar fine.

Maybe instead of filing non-sense, these incompetent attorneys general should rather read or educate themselves. It's not unconstitutional to impose a health care Mandate.

CHAP. LXXVII – An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled - That from and after the first day of September next, the master or owner of every ship or vessel of the United States, arriving from a foreign port into any port of the United States, shall, before such ship or vessel shall be admitted to an entry, render to the collector a true account of the number of seamen, that shall have been employed on board such vessel since she was last entered at any port in the United States,-and shall pay to the said collector, at the rate of twenty cents per month for every seaman so employed; which sum he is hereby authorized to retain out of the wages of such seamen

Guess some folks have some issues with my title. In my sense it was a sort of a mandate since any ship’s owner was required to deduct 20 cents from each sailor’s monthly pay and forward those receipts to the service, which in turn provided injured sailors hospital care. Isn't a mandate to purchase a Healthcare Insurance when your employers is given the right to deduct a part of your pay ? I can be wrong tho.