The Memoir Spot
A snapshot review of a book related to the Non-fiction Feature
Also in Bulletin #53:
The Non-fiction Feature: The Politics of Medicaid by Laura Katz Olson
The Product Spot: KFF – Medicaid 101
The Pithy Take
Writer Emily Maloney is deeply aware of the costs–actual, physical, mental, and emotional–of healthcare in the U.S. Not only has the financial cost of a failed suicide send her into thousands of dollars of debt, but she’s also worked as an EMT and ER tech, viewing the very guts of the medical industrial complex. Her story is painful but not uncommon, and brings to light many of the struggles that our healthcare system forces upon its patients.
This thought, this recollection of the hospitalization, the subsequent bills, the cost of the amublance to drive my unconscious body across town, the now fading first-name basis with the guy (Jeff? Or was it Ted?) ultimately assigned to my account in collections, was something that came up–briefly, repeatedly, stunningly–whenever I worked in billing, like a bee sting.
There was the prick of remembering, the wash of sudden insight. How responsible, how careful were we?…There was the guilt of billing a patient for too much–and we knew so many of these bills would enver be paid, especially when there was no insurance to bill.
Cost of Living
Author: Emily Maloney
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
240 pages | 2023
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