It’s not exactly what he’s best known for, but Alexander Hamilton helped develop the first national, compulsory health insurance policy in the world: a 1798 taxpayer-financed plan Congress approved to cover sick and disabled seamen. “The interests of humanity are concerned in it,” Hamilton wrote. And they still are, as MIT Professor Amy Finkelstein notes in a new book. The U.S. has repeatedly tried to provide medical care for those who need it and cannot afford it. These efforts may have started with Hamilton, but they have continued through modern…
