Cover Me
A Health Insurance Memoir
Published on 1. October 2010
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-8032-2623-4 (ISBN)
Description
Growing up in middle-class middle America, Sonya Huber viewed health care as did most of her peers: as an inconvenience or not at all. There were braces and cavities, medications and stitches, the family doctor and the local dentist. Finding herself without health insurance after college graduation, she didn't worry. It was a temporary problem. Thirteen years and twenty-three jobs later, her view of the matter was quite different. Huber's irreverent and affecting memoir of navigating the nation's health-care system brings an awful and necessary dose of reality to the political debates and propaganda surrounding health-care reform. "I look like any other upwardly mobile hipster," Huber says. "I carry a messenger bag, a few master's degrees, and a toddler raised on organic milk." What's not evident, however, is that she is a veteran of Medicaid and WIC, the federal government's supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children. In Cover Me, Huber tells a story that is at once all too familiar and rarely told: of being pushed to the edge by worry; of the adamant belief that better care was out there; of taking one mind-numbing job after another in pursuit of health insurance, only to find herself scrounging through the trash heap of our nation's health-care system for tips and tricks that might mean the difference between life and death.
Reviews / Votes
""Huber's irreverent humor makes her provocative ""health insurance memoir"" worth a read.""-Karen Springen, Booklist Online|""Cover Me is the best kind of memoir; it is engaging, enraging, tragic and funny. Fortunately, laughter as medicine is one thing the insurance companies have not yet managed to deny.""-T. Tamara Weinstein, Elevate Difference|""This book illustrates, in a way that mere political rhetoric cannot, how the lack of accessible, affordable medical care negatively affects everyone on a personal, emotional and economic scale.""-Joan Hanna, Author Exposure|""Huber's sure-footed prose considers how deeply connected an individual's health is to being both rooted and free, confident or fearful of securing even the most routine treatment. Once covered, she is safe under that blanket of care, and wise enough to understand that covers are easily blown, or blown away.""-Lisa Romeo, ForeWord Reviews|""In this humorous and affecting memoir, Huber details her experiences navigating the American health care system, and brings a necessary dose of reality to the political debates and propaganda surrounding health care reform.""-Women & Children First|""What I found so compelling about Huber's story is her ability to make the personal resonate so much more loudly than the political ideas or theories, while capably insuring that her own story underscores her political stance on health care. I found myself wanting to send copies to every member of the House and Senate.""-Sarah Werthan, Brevity Book ReviewsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Lincoln
United States
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 220 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
390 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8032-2623-4 (9780803226234)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2010
1st Edition
University of Nebraska Press
€30.49
Available for download
Person
Sonya Huber teaches creative writing in the low-residency MFA program at Ashland University and at Georgia Southern University. She is the author of Opa Nobody (Nebraska 2008) as well as multiple essays that have appeared in publications such as Fourth Genre, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Washington Post Magazine.
Content
Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Waiting for the Placebo Effect Chapter 2: Medical Magic Chapter 3: Do It Yourself Chapter 4: Failure to Heal Chapter 5: Female Trouble Chapter 6: Healthcare for All, Almost Chapter 7: Prescriptions Chapter 8: Employee + Child(ren) Chapter 9: The Melodrama Discount Chapter 10: Healthy Start Chapter 11: Fringe Benefits Chapter 12: The Price Tag Chapter 13: Following Up