Thirty-six hours before his wife was scheduled for a major surgery, New York Times personal finance columnist Ron Lieber got a letter in the mail that sent him reeling. 

Insurance was denying prior authorization for the surgery. The only way forward would be to appeal the decision. But it was Saturday night, and the surgery was Monday morning. There wouldn’t be any time. Should they even go to the hospital?

They decided to bet on being able to reverse the denial later on, but the last minute coverage  questions left Ron’s wife, New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, going into surgery that Monday with a brand new sense of stress and anxiety. 

And along with worrying how his wife's surgery would go (spoiler: it was successful), and whether they’d end up on the hook for a bajillion dollars, it left Ron to wonder why no one had given them a heads-up earlier.

He set out to find answers — and whether there might be a way to prevent these last-minute denials from sneaking up on other people. 

Ron turned to his "Your Money" newsletter subscribers for ideas, and eventually published a draft letter in his New York Times column that doctors and other health care providers could give their patients to better prepare them for insurance curveballs. 

Check out the column here – and consider passing it along to any health care workers whose patients you think might benefit. 

Here’s a transcript of this episode. 

Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Of course we’d love for you to support this show. 

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For five years, we’ve been following the work of Dollar For and its founder Jared Walker, watching them quickly scale up their efforts to help people crush medical debt by tapping into “charity care” — the financial assistance that hospitals are legally required to offer some patients. 

Their work represents what a small, scrappy, thoughtful group of people can do. Last year, their tiny staff helped wipe out more than $55 million in medical bills. 

As we kick off 2026, we thought it was time to check in again. After all, this will be a year when millions more people will have trouble covering their medical bills — when Dollar For’s work may become more important to more people, and when we’re hungry for more ways to help each other. 

As Jared tells it, 2025 proved to be a pivotal – yet rocky – period in the organization’s story. Both their successes and their challenges put into stark relief exactly what we’re all up against. 

So we go deep with Jared on what they achieved while they weathered the chaos, and what it might mean for their – and our collective – next moves.  

Here's a transcript of this episode. 

Check out our Starter Pack: How to wipe out your bill with charity care.

And our previous coverage of Dollar For:

• Could billions in medical debt get zapped by the legal strategy from this 60-second video? (2021)
  We talked to Jared just weeks after Dollar For first went viral. The group’s early history — they’d been working locally for years — is fascinating.
• Badass volunteers help Jared level up, in the fight to crush medical debt (2021)
  Within six months, they’d recruited volunteers and built systems. 
• The Medical Bill “Negotiation Lab” (2022)
  In an experiment aimed at scaling up impact, Dollar For tried a different approach in 2022. We sat in.
• One last tip before 2024 (2023)
  Why Jared thinks you should ask for “charity care” by name -- even though, let’s face it, asking for “charity” does not feel good to most of us.
• New lessons from the fight for charity care (2024)
  Dollar For spent 2024 focusing on the big picture and starting to focus on policy advocacy.

Check out our history of charity care series (from 2021): 

• A legendary lawyer sued hospitals for price-gouging their patients. And got his butt handed to him.
  Dickie Scruggs is the guy who beat Big Tobacco. But when he took on hospitals, he lost.
• The wild backstory of a tiny but crucial Obamacare provision (ft. David Axelrod)
  Charity care wasn’t part of federal law until the Affordable Care Act passed. A Republican senator made sure it was part of the ACA — before deciding he wouldn’t vote for the law.
• “We just kept right on pushing” … and laws changed
  In New York, a grieving family’s story made headlines and helped advocates catch lawmakers’ attention.
• Wait, that was legal until now?!
  In 2021, Maryland barred hospitals from suing patients who qualified for charity care.

Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Of course we’d love for you to support this show. 

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, first!  If you value what we do, we need your support to keep it going in 2026. 

We have SO much work ahead, and we can’t do it without you.  

Every little bit counts. Here’s where you can chip in. Thank you SO much!

Our listeners have been teaming up on an incredible project – kicked off earlier this year by a med student named Thomas Sanford. 

The idea: create a list of reliable resources to help with medical expenses and avoid debt, and circulate it where people might find it useful, like hospital waiting rooms. 

In this episode, we hear how that project is ready to level up – and how you can bring it to people in your community. 

Here’s how to help: 

Send this link to anyone you think might need it: armandalegshow.com/help 

Or go here to print it out, post it, pass it around, customize it for your community, or join with other volunteers: armandalegshow.com/helpers 

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, first!  If you value what we do, this is the best-ever time to support our work.

We have SO much work ahead in 2026. Donate here.

We’re back for another look at things that – believe it or not – did NOT suck in 2025. 

Specifically: new state laws from around the country aimed at protecting people from things like medical debt, insurance delays and denials, and corporate profiteering.  

In this episode, we dive into two examples from opposite sides of the country to look at how laws like these get made – and in some cases, defended. 

In Maine, lawmakers unanimously voted to remove medical debts from people’s credit reports. While a nationwide court ruling raises questions about the new law’s future, we’ll hear why consumer rights attorney Chi Chi Wu remains optimistic.  

And in Oregon, a law aims to prevent big corporations and private equity firms from taking over medical clinics and strip-mining them for profits.

Plus, a good-news update from our team at An Arm and a Leg. 

Here's a transcript of this episode. 

Send your stories and questions! Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

And, again… we’d love for you to support this show.

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, first!  If you value what we do, this is the best-ever time to support our work:  This month, every donation gets matched two-for-one.  

We have SO much work ahead in 2026. Donate here — and get your money matched two-for-one.

It’s probably fair to say: this is the worst year ever for picking health insurance. Premiums are skyrocketing – whether you get insurance through work or from the Obamacare marketplace. 

And with enhanced subsidies almost definitely expiring, millions of people with Obamacare plans are grappling with drastic changes to their household budgets. 

We’re our own case study: You’ll hear us sorting through our own options. None of them are pretty, but because we know how to read the fine print, we figured out: Some are way, way less awful than others. 

And to help you do the same: We’ve boiled down our fine-print-reading expertise in this starter pack on how to pick insurance. 

Also in this episode: we talk with a listener who wonders: is paying for health insurance even worth it at this point? (Her ultimate answer: Yes, but argh.)

Read Julie Appleby’s reporting for KFF Health News about what could happen if Congress changes course and extends the subsidies. 

Here’s a transcript of this episode. 

Send your stories and questions! Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

And, again… we’d love for you to support this show. 

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, first!  If you value what we do, this is the best-ever time to support our work:  This month, every donation gets matched two-for-one.  

We have SO much work ahead in 2026. Head to https://armandalegshow.com/support/ to donate — and get your money matched two-for-one.

This statement might shock you: some actual good things happened in 2025. Or, at least things that did not totally suck. 

Stuff like: new limits on the hoops insurance companies can make you jump through, and new protections from predatory debt collectors..  

These are just a couple examples of what state governments have been up to this year – in red, blue, and purple states alike. 

State governments can’t do it all, but across a couple of episodes, we’ll dive into a handful of meaningful wins, and learn how they came to pass. 

Today’s episode takes us to Nebraska, where the state passed aggressive new restrictions on prior authorization. 

And Virginia, where lawmakers banned wage garnishment for lots of medical debts.

Here's a transcript of this episode.

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Economist Vivian Ho has been researching the US health care system for four decades. These days she focuses on what she describes as the biggest burden on the average American: runaway hospital prices and rising health insurance premiums. (You know, Arm and a Leg stuff.) 

And she’s developed a strategy for addressing high insurance premiums – one based on a real-life success story.

So when she asked us to help her gather data for a new study, we were intrigued.

We break down Vivian’s theory of change, and how sharing your medical bills with her team could help build a data arsenal for the fight ahead. 

Want to share your documents with Vivian and her team? 

You can find all details about how to send them here.  

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

Send your stories and questions! Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Of course we’d love for you to support this show.

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A listener named Thomas Sanford wrote to us earlier this year, asking for help with a little DIY project. And it’s turned into the most encouraging thing we’ve seen all year.

With input from the Arm and a Leg community — specifically folks who get our First Aid Kit newsletter — Thomas has drafted a one-page handout, packed with resources for anyone who needs help with medical bills.

It’s ready for you to use, and he wants your help making it better. 

You’ll hear all about Thomas’s story — he’s a medical resident, who started out just wanting something to hand to his own patients — in today’s mini-episode.

And now you can get involved. Thomas’s current version is great — and there’s also tons of room to improve it, with your help.

• Print out the current version and pass it around: Download it right here.
• Make suggestions for the next version: Anybody can comment on this Google doc.
• Volunteer to pitch in: Got design skills? Editorial chops? Language skills, to translate it? Other ideas?  Here’s a sign-up form.

And you can make your own adaptations! Thomas has registered it with a Creative Commons license. 

This project has been incubating in our First Aid Kit newsletter. If you’re not subscribed, this is a great time to sign up. 

Here’s a transcript of this episode. 

Send your stories and questions! Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Of course we’d love for you to support this show.

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the first time, our senior producer, Emily, has to sign up for Obamacare. And it turns out, it’s one heck of a year to do that. 

A recent headline from KFF Health News reads: “Insurers and customers brace for double whammy to Obamacare premiums.”

We break down what those “whammies” might mean in dollars and cents for Emily and the millions of others signing up for Obamacare in 2026.  

Plus, we cover what’s happening with ACA navigators – the people charged with helping you sign up for Obamacare, and what to expect in November when open enrollment kicks off.  

Learn more about what’s coming in 2026 in our First Aid Kit newsletter. 

Check out KFF’s Obamacare premium calculator. 

Learn whether your state funds its own navigator program. 

Read a transcript of this episode.

Send your stories and questions! Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Of course we’d love for you to support this show.

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey first! We need your help: Financial help. Donations from listeners power this show, and we’ve got a goal: 100 people making their first-ever gift, this week. 

If you haven’t chipped in before, this is a great time — just click here.

OK, onwards…

Sharing a favorite from our archive – with lessons that are as relevant as ever. 

Laurie Todd calls herself The Insurance Warrior. She fights health insurance for a living. Her speciality: writing appeals when insurance companies deny high-stakes, high-dollar treatments.

Her first victory was fighting to get coverage for her own life-saving cancer surgery – which we chronicled in an episode tracing her origin story. 

Since then, she says she’s notched hundreds of other victories, and outlined her strategies in two books: Fight Your Health Insurer and Win and APPROVED: Win Your Insurance Appeal in 5 Days.

In this episode, we go deep on one of Laurie’s early, super-instructive cases, that taught Laurie one of the weirder truths about health insurance in America: fighting your health insurance often means fighting… your employer. 

And in this case, that employer was a $61 billion company. 

Want more about winning insurance appeals? Here’s our starter pack.

Here is a transcript of this episode. 

Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Support the show: https://armandalegshow.com/support/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.