Category: NPR

For older, often frail cancer patients, geriatric assessments can help doctors gauge the patients’ physical, mental and functional capacity, and choose an appropriate treatment approach.

“Street medicine” programs, like one in Atlanta, seek out people living in back alleys and under highways. The public health outreach improves patients’ health and is cost-effective, hospitals find.

ACA plans for 2020 are cheaper than last year — premiums lower, on average. And in some areas, people who qualify for federal subsidies could end up with no monthly payment. But read the fine print.

Five U.S. territories say if Congress doesn’t quickly allocate more funding for their Medicaid programs, they will be forced to make brutal triage decisions that will likely cost American lives.

When passing the ACA, Democrats touted the fact that they had included many measures to pay for the bill’s expanded coverage. But nearly 10 years later, Congress has eliminated many of those taxes.

Researchers edited the DNA in bone marrow cells taken from a Mississippi woman with sickle cell disease to produce a treatment that could alleviate the excruciating effects of her inherited illness.

This year the federal health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov has a few new bells and whistles. (This piece initially aired on Nov. 3, 2019 on Weekend Edition Sunday.)

A former vaper has a warning for others. And, scientists work to understand how nicotine affects the teenage brain. (This segment initially aired on Oct. 10, 2019 on Morning Edition.)

Three years after winning a big legal battle, abortion providers still find themselves losing the ground war when it comes to keeping clinics open across the huge, populous state.

Behavioral problems, criminal arrests and limited access to health care leave a father worried that his 21-year-old son will be deported to Mexico.