Are We Feeling Better Yet?: Women Speak about Health Care in America

Arguably, no other contemporary issue has stirred so passionate debate as health care reform. In this collection of 21 essays, women from around the country advance this discussion by recounting their individual efforts to access and receive quality health care within the formidable structure of the U.S. health care system. Their many voices speak with clarity, poignancy, and humor about situations familiar to all who have entered a health care setting on behalf of themselves or their loved ones. These penetrating stories cover a spectrum of health care conditions, but they unify around themes of strong self-advocacy and personal empowerment. The book is an enlightening read bot only for health acre consumers, but also for health care students, professionals, and for health policymakers.

About the Author :
Growing up on welfare in the first town in America to be completely evacuated because of toxic waste led Colleen McKee to an early, if reluctant, interest in the health care system. Her personal essays have appeared in anthologies such as Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class (Seal) and Under the Arch: St. Louis Stories (Antares). Her work on women and health care has appeared in Chronic Babe and Bellevue Literary Review. Additionally, she is the author of My Hot Little Tomato (Cherry Pie), a book of poetry about the pleasures of food and sex. She earned her B.A. in Literature and World Religions, as well as a minor in Women's Studies, from Webster University. She earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she teaches English and Women and Gender Studies. Amanda Crowell Stiebel is best known for her eclectic job history and her poetry publications; she has been a janitor, model, steelworker, high school teacher, perpetual student, caving instructor, telemarketer, and college instructor, among other things. Her free-verse poetry focuses mainly on experiencing life as a woman and has appeared in mnay publications, including the People's Press anthology The Familiar, and A Chaos of Angels (Word Walker), an anthology of poetry about psychotropic drug use. In addition, she has worked as an editor on Natural Bridge, a literary review. Amanda earned her B.A. in English at Truman State University, and her M.A. in English and M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She obtained a doctorate in American Studies from St. Louis University and currently teaches Developmental and Freshman English at the State University of New York at Orange. She, her husband, and son live in Middletown, NY.

Review :
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Department of Health and Human Services: "This book is a terrific encapsulation of the challenges facing our health care system."