Failure of U.S. Health Care System

Laurie Kaye Abraham argues in Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in the United States that the health care system in the United States has indeed failed miserably, specifically in treating poor people. As Abraham portrays it, the system has not only failed, it seems to have been created to fail, and to cause as much misery for poor and helpless sick people as it possibly can. Despite this negative portrait, the author apparently believes that the system can be restructured to better serve the poor sick in this country, although it seems that a complete collapse of the system first is more likely.

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

Related Essays

Analysis of US Health Care System Introduction .... Nonetheless, the US Seems to be failing at the .... rate per health expenditure and its failure to immunize .... have determined to ration the health care they provide .... (2285 9 )

Inequity in US Health Delivery System .... Mama Might be Better off Dead: The Failure of Health .... for Commercial Private Insurance." In The Nation's Health, ed. Philip .... "The Budget Monster." US News and .... (4178 17 )

Alternative Health Care Delivery Systems For US .... for national health care reform, the earlier experience does not ensure that managed care would be a failure as a basis for national health care reform. .... (3053 12 )

Health Care in US State & Federal Prisons .... the case that such a failure has implications .... The availability of health-care services in prisons appears to .... In 1993, a US congressional committee found that .... (5141 21 )

Health Care Access .... managed care and prospective payments in the US in effect .... The possibility of health care reform in the 1990s looks .... Power and Illness: The Failure and Future of .... (1565 6 )

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

Category: Medical - F