Military

NPR - Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and their families are unable to find health care off base when the Pentagon orders them to do so. An NPR investigation found that 50% of U.S. military bases are located in a federally designated health professional shortage area — commonly called  “health care deserts.” Some bases have their own military hospitals and clinics, but they're expensive, NPR's Quil Lawrence tells Up First. The Pentagon has tried to downsize its health care system in the past decade by outsourcing to private civilian care. This isn't easy because "there's no slack in the civilian health care system," and many hospitals are reluctant to accept troops' Tricare insurance. The Pentagon acknowledged that the downsizing went too far and needs to reverse course in an internal memo obtained by NPR.