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February 20, 2013 3-D printing can be used to make food, guns and maybe human ears. Researchers say that using collagen to print out ear cartilage solves a lot of the problems in making new ears for people with birth defects or injuries.

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February 5, 2013 KHNMany long-term care policies sold 30 years ago didn't specifically cover assisted living facilities. Policyholders rely on clauses that say new kinds of care will be covered when it becomes available, but the ultimate decision rests with insurers.

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January 29, 2013 KHNIf there's a settlement or judgment against another party in a liability case, Medicare is entitled to reimbursement for the money it spent on a beneficiary's medical care. The process is complex and prone to delays. A new law is expected to fix the problems.

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January 16, 2013 Zach Sayne, who died this month at age 25 in Alabama, never made it home to Georgia where his mother hoped he would be cared for. The story of why she couldn't move him there shows the bureaucratic traps, underfunding and lack of choices that plague state Medicaid programs.

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January 8, 2013 Congress expanded the scope of the Americans With Disabilities Act a few years ago to include food allergies. Now the Justice Department is making institutions accommodate students by providing "safe" food and special meal plans.

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November 14, 2012 Wearable robots are making walking a reality for paraplegics in rehabilitation centers around the country. But before Iron Man-like suits become mainstream, they'll need to overcome cost and regulatory hurdles.

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July 14, 2012 WESAPennsylvania used to have broad coverage of dental care for Medicare beneficiaries. But cuts to the state budget have led the Medicaid program to cover only basic dental services.

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June 13, 2012 A woman with intellectual disabilities who was denied a kidney transplant in 2006 died Tuesday in her sleep. The Oklahoma transplant center that turned her down said a woman with a mild intellectual disability did not have the mental competency to make an informed decision to choose a transplant.

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May 21, 2012 Katie Beckett, 34, died Friday morning in the same hospital where she once made history. Beckett spent most of the first three years of her life in an Iowa hospital because she needed to breathe on a ventilator much of the day. Medicaid would only pay for the expensive treatment if she stayed in the hospital. Her case led to a change in that rule.

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May 14, 2012 Within the first six years of getting out of high school, a little more than one-third of young people previously diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder had gone to college and only a slim majority — 55 percent — had held paying jobs.

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December 29, 2011 Surgeons make full-face transplants a reality for people with severely disfigured faces. Three such operations were performed successfully in Boston this year, a turning point in the field.

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October 13, 2011 Study authors say previous research on sexual violence prevalence among men with disabilities has been limited. But women with disabilities still faced the highest rates of sexual violence.

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June 16, 2011 The story of a pair of twins whose genomes were sequenced to help solve their medical mystery suggests new possibilities about the role of genomics in making diagnosis more precise.

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June 9, 2011 Worldwide, the most common disability for people under age 60 is depression, followed by hearing and visual problems, according to a new international survey. The study found more than 1 billion people live with some sort of disability.

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June 1, 2011 An Oregon woman woke up from dental surgery with an English-Irish-sounding accent. Hers is a rare disorder usually caused by an injury to the part of the brain that controls speech.

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