An Arm and a Leg

Manny Lanza died because he didn't have insurance. His parents fought back, with help from New York’s favorite tabloid. After years of work by advocates and organizers, laws suddenly changed. Here’s how. Here's a transcript for this episode . Send your stories and questions :  https://armandalegshow.com/contact/  or call 724 ARM-N-LEG And of course we'd love for you to support this show...

How one Republican senator made sure the ACA required non-profit hospitals to act more like charities—and less like loan sharks—before voting against the whole thing.  The national requirement to offer charity care emerged from the Obama White House’s failed courtship of GOP Senator Chuck Grassley. We hear how that failed courtship almost tanked the ACA— and how the battle over the ACA “broke...

The lawyer was Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, the lawyer who beat Big Tobacco in the 1990s. Later, he launched a series of ill-fated national lawsuits aimed at getting non-profit hospitals to quit price-gouging low-income patients, and chasing them hard for payment. It... didn't go as well as the tobacco lawsuit, by a long shot. Scruggs did help start something that ended up making real change. For ins...

We’ve been on a hiatus for a minute, and we are SO excited about what we’re coming back with. These are stories we’ve been collecting for months—some of them for more than a year—and they’re big.  One of them turns out to be about how change actually happens. Which for a show about the cost of health care—one that promises (and we do) to be entertaining, empowering, and useful—change is impor...

An update on Jared Walker, whose viral TikTok described a little-known (and effective) method to “crush” many hospital bills, and offered to help folks deploy it. Since then, he's been responding to thousands of requests for help—and building a system to respond more effectively, thanks to a small army of whip-smart volunteers.  Jared’s non-profit,  Dollar For , has got that system up an...

For years, at ProPublica, Marshall Allen has been exposing health care grifters. (He’s our kind of guy.)  Now, he's written a book … about how to fight back. It’s called “Never Pay the First Bill.” We talked—about some of his best tips, about how you can’t win ‘em all, and about why it’s worth learning all you can and giving it your best shot. Marshall compares the U.S. health-care "system" t...

Health care insiders get stupid medical bills too. One of them taught us how to write an insurance appeal—like the one that saved her son $14,000. You can read that letter—and her notes to us about why she chose to include certain words and key facts—right here: https://armandalegshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Appeal_letter_2020_redacted_with_comments.pdf We met Jeannine after our host addres...

When Adam Woodrum's insurance denied a claim for an ER bill, he sent his story to NPR... because he happened to KNOW how to deal with it. And he figured it would be a friendly thing to share what he knew. (Kudos, Adam!) This story was originally reported by Julie Appleby for our pals at Kaiser Health News, and KHN editor-in-chief Elisabeth Rosenthal weighs in at the end. See omnystudio.com/listene...

How hard is it to pick the best health insurance? ECONOMISTS find it hard. Including one who has studied the question, "How hard can it be to pick a decent insurance plan?" Lots of people are suddenly eligible to pick possibly-cheaper health insurance thanks to the American Rescue Plan—the big stimulus bill Congress passed in March—so we thought it could be useful to bring this 2018 story back. Al...

... and it's gonna take us a little while to get it ready for you— maybe a couple months. Meanwhile, we'll have little updates for you here and there. ... and it's a great time to sign up for our newsletter, where we'll have details on what's next, and stories we think you'll be interested in. Here's where to go: https://armandalegshow.com/newsletter/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inform...

With COVID vaccinations ramping up, it's time to check in: Who's been trying to make a buck? And who's been doing their best to serve the folks who need help the most? In Philadelphia, the good, the bad, and the ugly have all been on vivid display. The Bad comes with a giant serving of chutzpah: For a while, the city put its mass-vaccination program in the hands of a 22 year-old with no experience...

We're re-releasing and updating a story we first reported in 2019, about how insulin got to be so horribly expensive—the scientists who discovered it did NOT want price or profits to keep it away from people who need it—and what some people are doing about it, today. The story seems especially relevant right now, for two reasons: the COVID vaccine process has reminded all of us how vital it is to...

Yep. This viral TikTok video 's recipe for "crushing" medical bills is legally sound. And IRS filings from thousands of hospitals attest to $2.7 billion of crush-able debt from a single year — a number that experts say looks more like a floor than a ceiling. Of course, it'll take a lot of work to actually zap those debts. But Jared Walker is off to a promising start. His organization, Dollar For ,...

Jeff is a lawyer who used to represent medical-bill collectors in court. ("I was a bad guy, for sure," he says.) But he switched sides, and he's here to tell us what he knows. For instance, we have more rights than we probably know. It can be tough to get them enforced, but he's got some tips there too. And his portait of how the dark machinery works is... kind of hilarious. Here's a transcript fo...

2021 is off to a rough start, but we've got a couple of small things that don't completely suck. First, a new federal rule could help cut through one completely-ridiculous issue . Then, a listener describes how he headed off an insurance nightmare, using what he learned from this show. Dan talked about the first story—a requirement that hospitals give us some information upfront about what a given...

Former health-care executive Wendell Potter spent part of 2020 publishing  high-profile   apologies  for the lies he says he told the American people in his old job—and trying to debunk the myths he once sold. The story of how he became a whistle-blower is a modern-day  Christmas Carol . And it's a story about the long, messy process of change—whether that’s changing your own l...

This episode turns the tables: Host Dan Weissmann gets interviewed about what he's learned this year, and what's ahead for the show— with T.K. Dutes , an ace radio host and podcast-maker ... who was a nurse in a previous life, so she knows a thing or two about the health-care system. (She chronicled her career transition in an episode of NPR's Life Kit .) And here we learn: During her nursing care...

Keeping the plan we've got means paying $200 a month more. But... would a "cheaper" plan cost us more in the long run? It depends! And COVID makes it a lot more complicated. This stinks. You can hear my wife and me try to puzzle the whole thing out, and then I debrief with an expert. Who leaves me reminded how lucky we are to have the options we do. HEALTH INSURANCE SUCKS. But the alternative...

Andy Slavitt, who ran a big chunk of health care for the Obama administration, has spent 2020 talking with almost everybody who knows anything about the COVID pandemic— and sharing what he learns in real time, first on Twitter, then on his pandemic podcast "In the Bubble." When we wanted an episode taking a look at the big picture—what we've learned so far from the pandemic and what we might expec...

They're supposed to be free. And usually they are. But sometimes... things happen. Here's how to keep them from happening to YOU. New York Times reporter Sarah Kliff has been asking readers to send in their COVID-testing bills. She's now seen hundreds of them, and she runs down for us the most common ways things can go sideways, and how to avoid them. Here's Sarah's NYT story that inspired this ep...

Possibly our most-useful episode ever. A listener asked: How do I remain cool when calling insurance companies? We called a veteran self-defense teacher— because self-defense means a lot more than hitting and kicking. It's about standing up for yourself in all kinds of difficult situations. Which means using your words. Lauren Taylor talks us through some of her top strategies, and how she used th...

In a classic—and hilarious—David vs. Goliath story, Jeffrey Fox takes on a huge hospital over an outrageous bill, and wins. He's a bit of an expert in using small claims court to get satisfaction, and he's got detailed instructions for all of us. Here's his first lesson: The other side—no matter how big they are, and no matter what they say to you—doesn't actually get to make the rules. Not the LE...

There's a reason Shaunna Burns went viral with her videos about dealing with debt collectors: She used to be one, so she knows a few things. (Also she's smart and funny.) We fact-checked her advice with a legal expert: Jenifer Bosco, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center . Who said: Yep, most of Shaunna's advice totally checks out. This one's full of useful tips—and it's fun— so p...

Forty-something mom Shaunna Burns went viral on TikTok, thanks in part to a series of videos dishing out real-talk advice on fighting outrageous medical bills. She's become the virtual mom that thousands of Gen-Z followers love. She's funny, smart, and relatable—and she's got stories that'll make your hair stand on end. (Yep, medical bills figure into some of them.) Oh, and she can swear like a f-...

Laura Derrick fought and endured for decades. When medical bills threatened to swamp her family, she made huge sacrifices, worked unbelievably hard... and helped change the course of history. In a moment when we're all enduring a LOT, it seemed like a great time for Laura's story. It's one of the first stories we ever told on this show, and it has special resonance right now. Bonus: We catch up wi...