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Federal law bans payments for organs. But about 60 percent of Americans support health care credits as compensation for organ donors, the NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll finds...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/16/152498553/poll-americans-show-support-for-compensation-of-organ-donors?ft=1&f=1027

How some insurers pay for treatments means that cancer pills can wind up costing a patient more than an IV. Some states have passed laws to make sure that patients don't have to pay more to take pills. But those laws don't apply to Medicare...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/15/152741613/cost-of-cancer-pills-can-be-hard-for-medicare-patients-to-swallow?ft=1&f=1027

Mysterious fumes wafting in from outside have repeatedly sickened several nurses at a rural Pennsylvania health clinic, forcing the clinic to temporarily relocate. Like many other people living near gas wells around the country, the clinic's staff wonder whether the industry in their backyard is making them sick...

Details: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/15/152268475/sick-from-fracking-doctors-patients-seek-answers?ft=1&f=1027

Last year, a little more than half of employers offered health benefits for domestic partner according to a nationally representative sample of about 3,000 employers surveyed by benefit consultant Mercer. That's up from a little less than one-third in 2010...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/14/152692299/in-talent-hunt-some-businesses-offer-health-benefits-for-same-sex-couples?ft=1&f=1027

A panel of experts said that Truvada, a daily pill, could help protect healthy people at high risk for HIV infection. The benefits, in their view, outweigh possible side effects, including kidney damage and a dangerous increase in acid in the blood...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/11/152489768/fda-gets-advice-to-approve-first-pill-to-cut-hiv-infections?ft=1&f=1027

The government has identified hundreds of hospitals where Medicare patients are incurring especially high or low bills. Hospitals around McAllen, it turns out, aren't as terrible as they were made out to be, according to Medicare's calculations of how much it spent for the average patient from three days before admission to a month after discharge...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/10/152417875/recalculating-the-health-bill-in-mcallen-texas?ft=1&f=1027

Republicans want to block some $55 billion worth of automatic cuts to the Pentagon budget next year. Instead, they want to cut funding for social programs such as food stamps, Medicaid and Meals on Wheels. It's a choice that has been framed as guns versus butter, and this time, guns are expected to win...

Details: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/10/152390960/house-to-vote-on-gop-bill-favoring-guns-over-butter?ft=1&f=1027

British guidelines for collaboration between the drug industry and doctors suggests that conflicts are problems of the past. But a frequent critic refutes that notion and calls on recent examples to raise a warning...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/09/152362764/a-critics-advice-for-doctors-in-search-of-industry-work?ft=1&f=1027

You won't find cardboard chicken and mushy carrots at the Fauquier Hospital in Virginia, one of a dozen health care facilities dedicated to improving patient experiences beyond their immediate medical needs. In fact, the hospital's cafeteria has become a hang out for senior diners...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/05/09/152355829/hospital-food-so-fresh-even-the-healthy-come-to-dine?ft=1&f=1027

Kimberly Lankford, personal finance writer for Kiplinger.com and Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, talks to David Greene about the shifting market for long-term-care insurance, and if it is still worth buying...

Details: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/09/152319326/should-you-buy-a-long-term-care-insurance-policy?ft=1&f=1027

Will the administration's health law survive the Supreme Court? A majority of bettors think not. Over at Intrade, a "prediction market" for current events, the betting gave chances of about 58 percent that the court will disallow the mandate...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/08/152279840/these-health-law-bets-are-no-figure-of-speech?ft=1&f=1027

Insurers and employers are looking to stem the rising costs of expensive specialty drugs. One approach is to vary the copayment depending on the health value they calculate the drugs provide...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/08/152245452/why-your-drug-copay-could-change?ft=1&f=1027

As the nation's roughly 78 million baby boomers move into old age, the need for long-term care will soar. But when it comes to long-term-care insurance, relatively few sign up. The policies can be expensive and some big insurance companies have stopped offering them...

Details: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/151970188/long-term-care-insurance-who-needs-it?ft=1&f=1027

Trimming the rise in obesity in the U.S. by just 1 percent over the next two decades would reduce health care costs by by $85 billion. The fight isn't likely to be cheap. But new researchers shows that even a small dent in obesity rates could pay off...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/07/152184370/even-a-small-slowdown-in-obesitys-rise-would-save-big-money?ft=1&f=1027

Last year, tornadoes claimed the lives of more than 500 people in the U.S. Some safety advocates say protecting your head with a sturdy helmet could help reduce injuries and deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it's unaware of evidence in favor of helmets, but it acknowledges people may want to use them to protect themselves against head injuries...

Details: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/03/151944514/cdc-says-helmets-are-no-match-for-tornadoes-but-they-might-not-hurt?ft=1&f=1027