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Each month, William Piorun has to choose between paying his mortgage or buying medicine that keeps his pituitary-gland tumor in check. This month and last, the 65-year-old Medicare patient paid the mortgage, and stopped taking a drug that his doctor says he needs to ward off the risk of premature death. Once, hard choices like these were commonly forced only on those without health insurance. Now more patients who have insurance or Medicare must confront them as drug bills for those with chronic and life-threatening decisions soar. (Langreth, 12/22)

For Iowa's Latino population, language and culture also are obstacles to improved health care. Latinos represented about 5 percent of Iowa's population in 2013, Census Bureau estimates show. Their poverty rate was double that of white Iowans, at 26 percent, in 2012, the most recent figures available from the Iowa Data Center show. But language barriers they may encounter with providers are not the only factors. "Beliefs and customs are different, which prevents some cultures from trusting providers or going for medical care," said Joan Jaimes, outreach counselor at Marshalltown Community College. (Lengeling, 12/20)

Isaiah Newsome likes to play sports and hang out with friends, like any 17-year-old. But most of the time these activities are cut short as his body, stricken with sickle cell anemia since birth, fills with pain. Getting insurance to cover his health care adequately all of these years has not been easy, but at least he has has had insurance the past year. Some other African-American families in Iowa with low incomes do not, adding to difficulties they face getting health care. A University of Iowa Public Policy Center study in December 2013 put the problem into perspective, showing that African-American and Latino Iowans do not have the same access to adequate health care that Asian and white Iowans have. (Lengeling, 12/20)

For a few weeks last year, Michael Tranfaglia and Katie Clapp saw a remarkable change in their son, Andy, who'd been left autistic and intellectually disabled by Fragile X syndrome. Andy, who is 25, became more social, more talkative, and happier. "He was just doing incredibly well," his father says. The improvements came while Andy was taking an experimental drug — a drug made possible by the efforts of his parents. (Hamilton, 12/22)