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Did the Founders Favor Government-Run Heatlh Care?

John Fea   |  January 27, 2011 Leave a Comment

Rick Ungar, a writer for Forbes, thinks that they did.  So do some historians.

Check out this article about Ungar’s thesis in last week’s Washington Post.  Here is a snippet of that article:

Forbes writer Rick Ungar is getting some attention for a piece arguing that history shows that John Adams supported a strong Federal role in health care. Ungar argues that Adams even championed an early measure utilizing the concept behind the individual mandate, which Tea Partyers say is unconsittutional.

I just ran this theory past a professor of history who specializes in the early republic, and he said there’s actually something to it. Short version: There’s no proof from the historical record that Adams would have backed the idea behind the individual mandate in particular. But it is fair to conclude, the professor says, that the founding generation supported the basic idea of government run health care, and the use of mandatory taxation to pay for it…

Read the rest here.

 

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: founding fathers, health care

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