Your physical health, your financial health and how to safeguard both

Unnecessary tests, ineffective surgeries, needlessly intensive care: The U.S. health system is rife with waste – and that can make its way to your bill. Here are seven steps you and your loved ones can take to protect yourselves.

Duane Howell/Denver Post/Getty Images She risked it all to be afforded the same respect as white women Registering voters in the South in the Civil Rights movement — "an organizer whom others followed to the ends of the Earth" — Mary Hamilton was arrested repeatedly, threatened with rape, beaten again and again. But it was a simpler offense that would carry her all the way to the Supreme Court: Southern whites called black people by their first names, denying them honorifics like “Miss” and “Mr.” Spc. Avery Howard/AP Under President Trump, troop numbers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are up nearly 50 percent The numbers are small compared to the height of the wars in the late 2000s, but the rise from 18,000 fighters on the ground a year ago to 26,000 today suggests the president favors direct engagement in those countries, in and others. Troops doubled to 289 in Somalia, and a nearly all new force of 546 is in Niger. Eva Bee/Ikon Images/Getty Images Our inefficient health care system is riddled with waste. Here’s how to avoid paying for it Nearly $2,000 to pierce a child’s ears; brand-new supplies and useful drugs thrown in the trash; pregnancy tests for an octogenarian and a woman who’d had a hysterectomy. Wasteful use of medical care has "become so normalized that I don't think people in the system see it," says the head of a health care think tank. "It's sort of this perfect storm where no one is really evil, but the net effect is predatory." Orlin Wagner/AP Look up tonight to see the biggest full moon of the year The supermoon that peaks early Monday won't be so extreme as the one a year ago, but it's still the largest and brightest the satellite has loomed in our sky all year. To celebrate, we got you a gift: Tips from NASA's staff photographer. Paul Sancya/AP ‘Deinstitutionalization,’ hospital closures and the snowballing of a mental health care crisis More than 8 million Americans are estimated to suffer from serious psychological problems, but decades of well-intended policies have left many with nowhere to go — except emergency rooms, homeless shelters or prisons. A fifth of inmates now have serious mental illness. The country could use hundreds of psychiatric hospital beds per 100,000 people, but it has 14. You received this message because you're subscribed to our Best of NPR emails. |  Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy | NPR 1111 N. CAPITOL ST. NE WASHINGTON DC 20002