HIV Law: A Survival Guide to the Legal System for People Living with HIV

Living with AIDS is at least as distressing as dying from it, notes HIV-positive Miami lawyer Crockett. His book--an avalanche of advice and information--is a guide on how to orchestrate your SSA, SSD and SSI claims and benefits, how to take advantage of your COBRA rights and in what ways HMOs can be dangerous and how they can be useful for people with HIV and AIDS. The book is not to be read straight through (there is considerable overlap between chapters, and the number of calamities and abuses by the system recorded here would be overwhelmingly depressing), but it is a potentially valuable reference for the HIV-positive (gay and otherwise) facing such issues as wills and estates, life and health insurance, viatical companies (which buy life insurance policies) and rights in the workplace. Written in a chatty style, Crockett's book makes clear that, though things are looking better, it still takes enormous amounts of time and energy to protect the rights of, and collect the benefits accruing to, the HIV-positive; almost every chapter at some point suggests hiring a lawyer. This is not a book for those who want to get on with their lives and deaths, but for those who want to use every legal (and occasionally vaguely questionable) recourse to rage against the dying of the light. (Apr.)