Nicole Chung
Source: Carletta Girma
In author Nicole Chung’s new memoir, “A Living Remedy,” she tells the story of watching both her parents die in the span of two years. It was all the more painful because of her mother and father’s inability to afford the medical treatments they needed.
Chung blames the country’s broken health-care system, at least in part, for the fact that her father died at 67, and her mother at 68. By the time her father finally sought help at a low-cost health clinic, a doctor told him that his kidneys had lost more than 90% of their function. “It is still hard for me not to think of my father’s death as a kind of negligent homicide, facilitated and sped by the state’s failure to fulfill its most basic responsibilities to him and others like him,” Chung writes.
She also chronicles how her parents’ illnesses could never be processed and grieved over for what they meant alone; they always set off financial setbacks and fears, too. While her parents’ health deteriorates, Chung tries to become a writer and take care of her own two daughters, but these efforts are often mixed with frustration that she can’t do more to help the people who raised her. She writes of the “hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them.”
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Chung’s story is likely to resonate with many. In 2022, a record-high share of Americans (38%) said they or a family member had delayed medical treatments because of costs, according to a Gallup poll.
I spoke with Chung about her grief and the state of American health care. (This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Annie Nova: Your parents experienced a lot of job insecurity. I’m curious, how much as a child did you understand what was going on for them?
Nicole Chung: It’s hard because,…
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