BOOKS
Paperback, 297 pages
University Of Chicago Press
1994
The Failure of Health Care in Urban America
This critically acclaimed book is an unsettling, profound look at the human face of health care. Both disturbing and illuminating, it is the story of four generations of a poor African-American family coping with the devastating illnesses that are all too common in America’s inner cities.
From visits to emergency rooms and dialysis units, to trials with home care, to struggles with Medicaid eligibility, Abraham chronicles the Banes family and their access (or lack thereof) to medical care. Embedded in the family narrative is a lucid analysis of the gaps, inconsistencies, and inequalities the poor face when they seek health care.
REVIEWS & PRAISE
“A book of unexpected power. What begins as a matter-of-fact account of one black family's struggle to get Medicaid care builds into an emotional indictment of our incomprehensible, illogical health care bureaucracy.”
— Walt Bogdanich, New York Newsday
“While the President and Congress—years late, outcome unsure—ponder the difficulties of providing health care for all, a Chicago writer goes to the heart of today’s problem in just a few words: ‘Health care is treated as a commodity available to those who can afford it, rather than a public good.’”
— Victor Cohn, The Washington Post
“Detail by detail, Abraham builds a convincing case for a massive overhaul of the nation’s health system. She is a graceful wordsmith and a gifted storyteller; Mama Might Be Better Off Dead often has the narrative force of a novel. If only the dire events of this book were fiction.”
— Miles Harvey, Utne Reader
“Best Books of 1993… If you doubt that this country needs universal health-care coverage, read this straight-forward report on how the present system fails one poor Chicago family.”
— Robert Wilson, USA Today
“Abraham has done prodigious research, and her grasp of the Banes family’s dizzying ride is formidable…. A powerful indictment of the big business of medicine.”
— Karen Stabiner, The Los Angeles Times