The Access Project

According to this source, a group called The Access Project conducted a survey which found that people with medical insurance still have problems paying health care bills. The scope of the problem was described by one health care expert as "... a national crisis of enormous proportions."

Now, being sensitive to national crises that I've never heard of in addition to being skeptical of most surveys, I looked at the originators of the survey to see what political persuasion they might call home.

From this document, I learned that two leaders of The Access Project, Robert Seifert and Jeffrey Prottas, are trying to link health care to home ownership. In other words, without adequate health insurance, the public's "ability to secure or maintain housing" is impeded. As I gather, the conclusion is that America's health insurance system is placing the public at risk of becoming homeless.

Being helpful, Seifert offers solutions.

- First, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers can cut their prices.

- Second, make employers and insurers guarantee that health bills will present no struggle for families.

- Third, pass a law which prohibits credit agencies from knowing anything about people's medical bills. This would allow people to incur mortgage debt that they would otherwise not qualify for.

As far as solutions to the newly created (I contend) medical debt and homelessness problem, Seifert's ideas are simply utopian.

- Doctors and hospitals are in business and their prices reflect the costs of supporting their businesses. They can't simply cut prices and not expect their businesses to suffer.

- Okay, Seifert says the employers and insurers will be responsible for adequate public health care, not the individual. This assumes that employers and insurers have infinite resources. They don't.

- Seifert's third idea borders on ludicrous. Hide information from credit agencies! Just so people can incur additional debt? Absolutely bizarre!

Further research indicates that the current President of The Access Project, Cathy Dunham, has been described as the "Boston health justice maven" by fellow political activists. Note that when "justice" is used with a qualifier such as environmental, racial, ecological, nutritional, educational or health, it's a code word for socialism.

Given that The Access Project has created a complicated argument that links medical costs to housing costs with an alarmist "national crisis" description attached to it, one might not realize that the argument is disingenuous because one could just as easily link medical costs to food costs or the cost of shoes with the same logic. People have to make judgments every day regarding where they are going to spend their money. And if the medical debt is high, then people will have to forego buying something else in order to pay their bills.

I'm not naive enough to think that The Access Project doesn't have an agenda to push for socialized medicine in the U.S. How else could you explain the creation of a bogus crisis and the presentation of ludicrous solutions? Consequently, if you see The Access Project's name attached to any survey or study, realize that the results were likely established prior to any research being conducted.

By the way, the conclusions drawn in The Access Project's report were based on interviews with 45 people. Out of a population of 300,000,000, only 45 were interviewed to conclude that the entire health insurance system is an illusion and failing the people when they get sick.