The Insurance Warrior battles a $61 billion company (from 2021)
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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A wild health insurance hustle
When a New York couple purchased a health insurance plan from a telemarketer, everything sounded legit. Meds, doctors, tests? All covered. But it didn't take long for them to realize they'd been “hustled” – ending up with bills for thousands of dollars, and leaving them no choice but to skip important medical care. In their series “Health Care Hustlers,” Bloomberg reporters Zach Mider and Zeke Faux uncover the exact nature of the scheme – how this couple, as well as thousands of others, signed up for health plans by unknowingly agreeing to work “fake jobs.” Zach and Zeke join us to unpack the many surprising layers to this business— involving a subculture of unscrupulous telemarketers, a TV-sitcom-writer-turned-investor who masterminded the idea, and the legal gray area that allows these plans to proliferate. Reminder: If you need to sign up for health insurance, the place to go is healthcare.gov. (As we’ve warned before: Don’t even Google it.) No matter what, shopping for insurance requires a ton of homework. We’ve got a guide for you in this Starter Pack. 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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30:20
The great American drug shortage isn't an accident, it's artificial (from Organized Money)
As a follow-up to our series The Prescription Drug Playbook — all about how you can get the meds you need at a price you can (maybe) afford — we’re stepping back to look at the big picture. From the start of this podcast, we’ve been trying to answer a major question: Why do my meds cost so freaking much? And we’ve highlighted the profit-seeking games that insurance, pharma, and middlemen play all around us in more than a half dozen episodes. But there’s one set of players on the field that we’ve never talked about: drug distributors, and how they play a role in another reason you may not be able to get your medicine: drug shortages. This story comes from our friends at Organized Money, a podcast about monopolies, from writers and journalists David Dayen and Matt Stoller. We think you’re going to like it. In the meantime, check out the latest installment of our First Aid Kit newsletter for a rundown of our previous coverage of drug costs. 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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39:06
The Prescription Drug Playbook, Part Two
In February, we asked you, our listeners, to share the tips, tricks, and tactics you’ve learned for getting the medicine you need at prices you can manage. And of course some of you work in health care and have insider knowledge. Which we’re passing along in this second episode of The Prescription Drug Playbook. We’ll hear from a listener who works to help seniors find healthcare, a pharma sales rep, an employee benefits advisor, and a battle-worn hospital caseworker – all bringing something a little surprising, and possibly even life-saving to the table. Of course—for all their advice, there is a BIG caveat: there is no one solution for everyone. This is a set of patches, workarounds, bandaids. We deserve SO much better. But in the meantime, maybe some of these tips can help. Here’s a link to the Find a Health Center Tool that we told you about in the episode—it’s worth checking out! And here's the full drug-price song by producer Claire Davenport and some robots Find the whole Prescription Drug Playbook series – including our First Aid Kit newsletters — at armandalegshow.com/drugs 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Trailer: The Prescription Drug Playbook
Too many of us get sticker shock when we go to pick up our meds. We asked our listeners how they get by in this situation, and we learned dozens of tips. And in this two-part series, we’re sharing those strategies — including some advice from experts. The next episode drops June 30. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
An Arm and a Leg is a podcast about why health care costs so freaking much and what we can (maybe) do about it.
If you’ve ever been surprised by a medical bill, you’re in good company. But as our team of seasoned journalists has learned from years of reporting — you’re not always helpless. We don’t have all the answers, but we’ll offer you tools and big picture insights with plenty of humor and heart.
An Arm and a Leg is co-produced with KFF Health News and distributed in partnership with KUOW.
You can support An Arm and a Leg by donating at armandalegshow.com/support/
Show Credits: Created, hosted, and produced by Dan Weissmann with senior producer Emily Pisacreta and engagement producer Claire Davenport, edited by Ellen Weiss. Audio wizard: Adam Raymonda. Music is by Dave Weiner and Blue Dot Sessions. Bea Bosco is our consulting director of operations. Lynne Johnson is our operations manager.
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