“An Act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen was passed by the 5th Congress. It was signed by President John Adams on July 16, 1798. The Act authorized the deduction of twenty cents per month from the wages of seamen, for the sole purpose of funding medical care for sick and disabled seamen, as well as building additional hospitals for the treatment of seamen.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_for_the_relief_of_sick_and_disabled_seamen
It was within the power of the Congress, under Article I Section 8, to raise a Navy. Naval personnel have to be cared for. On those grounds, it was constitutional.
A “Living Constitution” is an unconstitutional, man-made construct, designed to trick people out of their rights. The bizarre notion that anything a lawmaker claims to be “General Welfare” is also constitutional, plays right into the hands of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky whose goal was to promote the use of “democracy” as a tool to get to communism. Our Founding Fathers rightly despised democracy, which anyone but the most foolish understands is simply 51 wolves and 49 sheep deciding what to have for dinner.