An Arm and a Leg

By An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture Health

What's An Arm and a Leg about?

A show about why health care costs so freaking much, and what we can (maybe) do about it. Hosted by award-winning reporter Dan Weissmann (Marketplace, 99 Percent Invisible, Planet Money, Reveal). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

4.8

921 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

John Green vs. Johnson & Jo...

09.28.2023

This is part two of our globe-spanning story about drugs, patents, and YouTube megastar John Green. Quick recap: In our last episode, we learned how writer and YouTube star John Green kicked up a fight with Johnson & Johnson over ...

An Arm and a Leg episodes:

09.28.2023 John Green vs. Johnson & Johnson (part 2) This is part two of our globe-spanning story about drugs, patents, and YouTube megastar John Green. Quick recap: In our last episode, we learned how writer and YouTube star John Green kicked up a fight with Johnson & Johnson over ...
09.07.2023 John Green vs. Johnson & Johnson (part 1) This episode is special. When we heard that widely-beloved writer John Green was rallying his online community around a fight over drug prices — and apparently making a difference — we were pumped. And this story took us in so ...
08.17.2023 Something's coming, something good. Hey there— our next story is gonna take a little more time to cook, but it is going to be SO worth it. It involves John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars — and yes, we've got an ...
07.27.2023 How to Get a Surprise Bill on Your Way to the Hospital For a year and a half now, the No Surprises Act has protected patients from some of the most outrageous out-of-network medical bills. But Congress left something pretty crucial out of the law — bills from ground ambulances. We look ...
07.06.2023 Wait, what’s a PBM (and how do they work)? If you’ve been told your insurance won’t cover your meds — or that you’re gonna have to pay an arm and a leg for them — you’ve met a PBM: a pharmacy benefits manager. And: Experts say they play a ...
06.15.2023 Credit Card, Please A listener’s doctor wanted her credit card info up front — before her appointment. She wondered: Do I need to give it to them? We did too. After all, who wants the risk of being overcharged — and then having ...
05.25.2023 A ‘payday loan’ from a health care behemoth When a New York doctor tweeted recently about “payday loans” for doctors from a branch of UnitedHealth Group — which operates the giant insurance company UnitedHealthcare — we were intrigued. Especially when we saw that the loan product — a ...
05.03.2023 Mental health ‘ghost networks’ — and a ghost-buster For lots of people, trying to access mental health treatment — like a therapist or a psychiatrist —is nothing short of a horror story. You could even call it a ghost story. A “Ghost network” is what researchers and journalists ...
04.13.2023 A $229,000 medical bill goes to court Before her surgery, a hospital told Lisa French she would end up owing them $1,337. After insurance paid them — more than they’d expected — the hospital billed her $229,000. And sued her for it. Her case went all the ...
03.23.2023 A doctor’s love letter to ‘the People’s Hospital’ What if we had a decent, publicly-funded health system — available to everybody, with or without insurance? We’ve got one, says Dr. Ricardo Nuila. It’s where he works. And it could be a model for the whole country. Yes, really. ...
03.02.2023 Lessons from “wrestling with a giant” The ER visit was quick and uneventful. The bill was $1,300. Our listener decided to push back. He didn't win, but he learned a lot — and so did we. We had help, from an expert we met by visiting ...
02.09.2023 The bill looked like BS. So she took it to small claims court. “I sued a hospital in small claims court and lost — here’s what I learned.” That was the subject line for an email we got from listener Lauren Slemenda. She wrote: “I feel like I won” — and we knew ...
01.19.2023 Can They Freaking Do That?!? (2023 Edition) We’re kicking off the year with a throwback. We revisit a 2019 episode that opened up new possibilities for fighting back against outrageous medical bills — a theme we’ll spend a lot more time exploring this year A listener named ...
12.29.2022 2022 in Review The Arm and a Leg editorial team gathered to talk about the moments from 2022 that we’ll never forget — including when work collided with real life. We’re so lucky we get to do this work, and we couldn’t do ...
12.19.2022 Like pulling teeth. When a car hit Susan and knocked out a bunch of teeth, her health insurance was supposed to pay for her oral surgery, and she knew it. So why has she had to chase them for 18 months and counting? ...
12.01.2022 The best video about health insurance, ever A couple months ago, we started getting messages from listeners telling us: you gotta watch this video. It’s a thirty minute YouTube video from a creator named Brian David Gilbert, and it’s probably the best video about health insurance we’ve ...
11.17.2022 Health insurance post-Roe, and a grassroots network of abortion funds Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion has been banned in more than a dozen states. As you choose your insurance plan for next year, you might be wondering: How does that affect my insurance plan? We learned ...
11.03.2022 A listener asks: Could NOT having insurance be a better deal? It’s open enrollment for 2023 health insurance for lots of folks — a time when you might find yourself asking: what good is health insurance anyway? One listener wrote to us about his son, a student with no income. Dad ...
10.20.2022 Quick update from Arm and a Leg HQ Hey there, You may have noticed, we've been keeping a slower pace for the last few months — publishing every three weeks instead of every two — since Dan recovered from COVID. And every-three-weeks is gonna stay our default for ...
09.29.2022 California plans to make its own insulin and sell it super-cheap. Really. This year, the state of California put up $100 million to produce its own insulin, and sell it for cheap. How’s it going to work? (Is it going to work?) The price of insulin could be the starkest example of ...
09.08.2022 Congress fixed (a piece of) Medicare. It only took a few decades. Lots of seniors have to pay thousands of dollars for drugs—even tens of thousands—or do without life-saving medicine. That’s finally going to change. The new Inflation Reduction Act will set a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors. (Yes, ...
08.18.2022 The Medical-bill "Negotiation Lab" It’s often possible to negotiate medical bills. It sounds hard — and it can be — but what if we got it down to a science? Mapped out all the moves ahead of time? Jared Walker and his team at ...
07.28.2022 The Genetic Testing ‘Bait-and-Switch’ Is it possible for a health care company to make enough people mad about their billing practices that it hurts their business? For one genetic testing company, maybe so. An Arm and a Leg listener Jessica got a test that’s ...
07.07.2022 One ER Doc’s Journey Through the Pandemic — and the Health Care System Thomas Fisher is an emergency room doc in Chicago. His book, The Emergency, is an up-close chronicle of the COVID pandemic’s first year in his South Side ER. It also zooms out to tell the story of his journey as ...
06.16.2022 These docs are trying to kick private equity out of their ER About a third of ER doctors now work for companies backed by private equity. A lot of those docs do not like the arrangement, which they say puts profits ahead of patients. Now, a group of ER docs are suing ...
05.26.2022 Credit Where It’s Due Credit reporting bureaus announced in April that they would start taking most medical debt off of people’s credit reports. At first, we weren’t sure that would be such a huge deal. After all, the medical debt would still exist, people ...
05.05.2022 “The Golden Age of Older Rectums” (for investors) A new golden age is dawning, and it starts where the sun don’t shine. A listener got a pricey quote for her colonoscopy, but the medical practice behind it seems like “the only game in town.” We scope it out ...
04.21.2022 Sick Note, pt. 2: Dang Dan’s COVID has hung on there for a while, kept him SUPER tired. Yoinks. Back in a couple weeks! Meanwhile, as always, we'd love for you to: Get in touch to share a story or your thoughts. Subscribe to First ...
04.07.2022 Sick Note: Dan has COVID. (He's fine, but ...) Hey there — I got COVID a little before we were scheduled to tape this week's episode. Whoops! I'm fine now, but kinda tired. Just to be on the safe side — some people stay tired for a while — ...
03.24.2022 Fighting for the Right to Help It’s illegal to advise someone who’s being sued for medical debt, unless you're a lawyer. Yep, really. Even in its most basic form (like helping people fill out a checklist) it’s considered the “unlicensed practice of law.” And it’s a ...
03.10.2022 Swimming with sharks Pharma and insurance companies play devious, clever games, competing for dollars. They’re sharks! It’d be fun to track, but they’re eating us alive. If anyone could beat the sharks at this game, we’d pick Lillian Karabaic, who runs the personal ...
02.24.2022 Introducing: Half Vaxxed Last year we brought you the story — part caper, part tragedy — of how Philadelphia tried to hand off its COVID vaccination program to a wannabe tech bro right out of college. We built on the work of reporter ...
02.10.2022 Introducing: Last Day Stephanie Wittels Wachs has made the show about a topic that's actually too enraging, terrifying, and depressing for An Arm and a Leg: the opioid crisis. And it's as entertaining, empowering and useful as we could ever want. It's called ...
01.27.2022 Meet your new rights under the No Surprises Act The No Surprises Act — a new law that protects us from some outrageous out-of-network hospital bills — takes effect this month. That's great news, but (and there’s always a but) there are some important caveats to know about. Like, ...
01.13.2022 2022 update: How to avoid a big bill for your COVID test (feat. Sarah Kliff) COVID testing—the kind they send to a lab— is supposed to be free in the U.S. But it’s never been quite that simple. We’re revisiting our sadly-still-relevant interview with Sarah Kliff from the New York Times, who joined us in ...
12.30.2021 Our Year in Review, with members of the Arm and a Leg team An Arm and a Leg wraps up a big year, and some of the team takes a moment to reflect. Consulting Managing Producer Daisy Rosario, Editor Marian Wang, and Associate Producer Emily Pisacreta join host Dan Weissmann in a conversation ...
12.20.2021 Why rapid COVID tests are so freaking expensive Who’s making a buck: rapid test edition. Rapid, at-home COVID tests are pretty much essential if you want to see friends and family this holiday season, and stay safe. But they’re freaking expensive and can be hard to find. What ...
12.09.2021 Fighting with health insurance is easy (for Jacqueline Fox) Health insurance is like some medieval horror, says law professor Jackie Fox. But, funny thing: She also says insurance fights are easy. For her. She’s been helping people win them for 30 years. Jackie Fox has a lot to teach ...
11.24.2021 How to avoid the crappiest health insurance. We kick off with a wild ride: How one journalist almost got roped into a scam. While hunting for a new insurance plan, Mitra Kaboli got an offer that seemed too good to be true—but seemed to be coming from ...
11.11.2021 The Insurance Warrior takes on a $61B Company When Mattew Lientz needed surgery to save his life, his insurance wouldn’t cover it. Enter: Laurie Todd, the Insurance Warrior. Her first task: Figuring out who Matthew was really fighting, and how big the battle really was. Together, Matthew, his ...
11.01.2021 Meet the Insurance Warrior In 2005, Laurie Todd needed surgery to save her life. Her insurance company had no intention of paying for it. She went to war, and won. She's been helping other do the same ever since. Now, she's sharing her secrets ...
10.14.2021 We spend 12 million hours a week on the phone with health insurance Yup. A Stanford professor measured it. So… we should probably learn how they actually make money, understand their incentives. Here’s one clue: A lot of the time, providing insurance isn’t their real job. In this episode, we unpack what that ...
09.30.2021 Wait, that was legal until now?!? Hospitals in Maryland were suing patients over bills that should’ve been forgiven. It wasn’t illegal. Until now. How a coalition changed that. This year. Plus, our friends at Dollar For build their bill-crushing army, one Zoom training at a time. ...
09.16.2021 "We just kept right on pushing" 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 ...
09.02.2021 The wild backstory of a tiny but crucial Obamacare provision (ft. David Axelrod) 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 ...
08.19.2021 A legendary lawyer sued hospitals for price-gouging their patients. And got his butt handed to him. 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. ...
08.05.2021 We’re back! Starting Aug 19. And we’ve got some doozies for you. 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 ...
07.15.2021 Badass volunteers help Jared level up, in the fight to crush medical debt 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 ...
06.30.2021 A whole book about fighting effed-up medical bills? Yes, please. 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 ...
06.09.2021 Want to write a killer letter to insurance? Meet Jeannine. 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 ...

Older episodes

An Arm and a Leg

What's An Arm and a Leg about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

An Arm and a Leg episodes:

John Green vs. Johnson & Johnson (part 2)

John Green vs. Johnson & Johnson (part 1)

Something's coming, something good.

How to Get a Surprise Bill on Your Way to the Hospital

Wait, what’s a PBM (and how do they work)?

Credit Card, Please

A ‘payday loan’ from a health care behemoth

Mental health ‘ghost networks’ — and a ghost-buster

A $229,000 medical bill goes to court

A doctor’s love letter to ‘the People’s Hospital’

Lessons from “wrestling with a giant”

The bill looked like BS. So she took it to small claims court.

Can They Freaking Do That?!? (2023 Edition)

2022 in Review

Like pulling teeth.

The best video about health insurance, ever

Health insurance post-Roe, and a grassroots network of abortion funds

A listener asks: Could NOT having insurance be a better deal?

Quick update from Arm and a Leg HQ

California plans to make its own insulin and sell it super-cheap. Really.

Congress fixed (a piece of) Medicare. It only took a few decades.

The Medical-bill "Negotiation Lab"

The Genetic Testing ‘Bait-and-Switch’

One ER Doc’s Journey Through the Pandemic — and the Health Care System

These docs are trying to kick private equity out of their ER

Credit Where It’s Due

“The Golden Age of Older Rectums” (for investors)

Sick Note, pt. 2: Dang

Sick Note: Dan has COVID. (He's fine, but ...)

Fighting for the Right to Help

Swimming with sharks

Introducing: Half Vaxxed

Introducing: Last Day

Meet your new rights under the No Surprises Act

2022 update: How to avoid a big bill for your COVID test (feat. Sarah Kliff)

Our Year in Review, with members of the Arm and a Leg team

Why rapid COVID tests are so freaking expensive

Fighting with health insurance is easy (for Jacqueline Fox)

How to avoid the crappiest health insurance.

The Insurance Warrior takes on a $61B Company

Meet the Insurance Warrior

We spend 12 million hours a week on the phone with health insurance

Wait, that was legal until now?!?

"We just kept right on pushing"

The wild backstory of a tiny but crucial Obamacare provision (ft. David Axelrod)

A legendary lawyer sued hospitals for price-gouging their patients. And got his butt handed to him.

We’re back! Starting Aug 19. And we’ve got some doozies for you.

Badass volunteers help Jared level up, in the fight to crush medical debt

A whole book about fighting effed-up medical bills? Yes, please.

Want to write a killer letter to insurance? Meet Jeannine.

Other shows like An Arm and a Leg: