Failure of U.S. Health Care System

However, the author is not merely trying to show the sad state of the system overall, in national, statistical, theoretical, or other grand contexts. To the contrary, she wants to bring the reader down to the level where the failure of the health care system is most intensely and tragically experienced--in the lives of the poor sick themselves: "At the book's center are four generations of a black family who live in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods." Members of the family are riddled with various, serious ailments. Jackie, granddaughter, mother and wife of ailing kin, is shown to be not "a helpless victim but a resourceful woman who tried to work the health care nonsystem to the best of her ability" (2). Her failures, Abraham writes, are due to the system and not to any lack of effort on her part. Jackie is a shining symbol against the argument that the

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st and humane. To give them less is to treat them as less than human and to dehumanize he entire society. For that is one of the author's most important intentions and successes---showing the reader the human side of the suffering caused by an unjust and indifferent health care system. Abraham also suggests reform of Medicaid: "It probably would and should be eliminated if the country decided to guarantee some level of basic care to everyone, but if not, its payment rates must be brought in line with those of other health care payors" (257). However, as it exists now, the author says, and as she has amply illustrated in her account of the family's suffering, Medicaid merely "perpetuates inaccessible, inferior health care for the poor" (257). In her listing of reforms, Abraham concludes: Any health program that purports to care for the poor must do a better job of figuring out what basic services they need to cope with illness, and how to provide those services in a straightforward way. The poor need more than medical insurance (258). The author's suggested reforms do not measure up to the comprehensive and moving picture she paints earlier of the poor family's problems in dealing with illness and an inaccessible health care s
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1723
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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