Category: NPR

A college student never learned the cause of intense pain that drove her to an ER, but her bill totaled $18,735.93. She and her mom, a nurse practitioner, were outraged after dissecting the charges.

The practice of housing children who are in psychiatric crisis in local ERs — often for days, while they await appropriate in-patient treatment — has become even more prevalent during the pandemic.

With record levels of people relying on Medicaid for health care, the Biden administration is making moves to expand it even farther.

The Houston Methodist Hospital system said 153 employees either resigned or were terminated. Earlier this month, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit over the COVID-19 vaccine requirement.

An NPR correspondent living with incurable cancer says 7% is no solution. That’s one estimate of how much — or how little — breast cancer research funding goes toward metastatic disease.

Eager to control costs and sickness, hospitals and insurers are trying to help patients access better food, housing and transportation. But so far there is little research showing these efforts work.

A newly-approved drug, Wegovy, has shown to have significant weight loss benefits. But it’s unclear if insurers will cover the cost of the medication for the millions of Americans who might need it.

NPR’s Audie Cornish talks with an architect of the Affordable Care Act, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, about the Supreme Court upholding Obamacare once again.

The decision threw out the challenge to the law, on grounds that Texas and other objecting GOP-dominated states were not required to pay anything under the mandate provision. The vote was 7 to 2.

Despite being hit hard early in the pandemic, New York City lags behind in vaccinating people 65 and older, and its efforts to reach the homebound and disabled have been disorganized.