Health Care Backgrounders & Briefs
05/18/2011
By Gautham Rao, Department of History, New Jersey Institute of Technology
In 1798 President John Adams signed into law legislation that taxed merchant mariners’ wages at the rate of $0.20 per month used the subsequent revenue to construct a national medical network for the use of “sick and disabled” merchant mariners. The Marine Hospital Act of 1798 was the federal government’s first foray into public medicine.
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01/01/2007
Jody Heymann, Alison Earle and Jeffrey Hayes. Project on Global Working Families and the Institute for Health and Social Policy. 2007.
“The Work, Family and Equity Index: How Does the United States Measure Up?” provides a damning window into our dysfunctional social safety net. “Of the 173 countries studied, 168 countries offer guaranteed leave with income to women in connection with childbirth; 98 of these countries offer 14 or more weeks paid leave…the U.S. guarantees no paid leave for mothers in any segment of the work force, leaving it in the company of only 4 other nations: Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland.”
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