x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

An Arm and a Leg

An Arm and a Leg

An Arm and a Legis 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

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

32:15

Some more things that didn’t suck in 2025

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/12/11

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

en

30:02

How to pick health insurance — in the worst year ever

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/11/20

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

en

24:14

Some things that didn’t suck in 2025 (really)

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/11/06

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

en

20:02

This health economist wants your medical bills

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/10/23

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

en

10:48

We love this listener’s project — and your response

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/10/09

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

en

29:01

Will we be able to afford insurance in 2026?

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/09/18

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

en

23:44

The Insurance Warrior battles a $61 billion company...

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/08/28

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

en

30:20

A wild health insurance hustle

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/08/07

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

en

39:06

The great American drug shortage isn't an accident,...

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/07/18

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

en

27:40

The Prescription Drug Playbook, Part Two

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/06/30

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

en

1:29

Trailer: The Prescription Drug Playbook

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/06/24

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.

en

26:07

The Prescription Drug Playbook, Part One

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/06/12

In surveys, one in four Americans report having to skip their medications due to cost. We asked our listeners: what strategies have you used when you’ve been hit with pharmacy sticker shock? We heard from a ton of you – with stories, strategies and workarounds that surprised and encouraged us. None of them will work for everybody. This is a set of patches and bandaids for a broken system. But if there’s one that’ll work for you, we want to help you find it. So we’re

en

32:11

Could this mathematician’s formula fix US hospitals?

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/05/22

What do the KGB and the former CEO of Cincinnati Children's Hospital have in common? At different times, they’ve each looked to a guy named Eugene Litvak for help. He only said yes to Cincinnati — but he saved that hospital more than a hundred million dollars a year. For the last few decades, Litvak – a Soviet émigré with a PhD in math – has been on a mission: save U.S. hospitals from financial ruin, and improve the lives of doctors, nurses, and patients. He

en

25:30

A longtime expert puts 2025-so-far in perspective

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/05/01

With news blasting from Washington like a firehose, it feels impossible to take it all in — to stay on top of all the changes the Trump administration has been trying to make. But for health care, one person is probably closer to anyone than to understanding the full picture: KFF Heath News Chief Washington Correspondent Julie Rover. In this episode, Julie helps us see that picture, by telling us two stories: The first concerns a teeny part of the health care system — an obscure federal

en

22:55

Why ‘The Pitt’ is our fave new drama

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/04/10

People who work in real-life emergency rooms have raved about how accurately the new drama The Pitt (Max) captures the dynamics and the medical details of their workplaces. Here at An Arm and a Leg, we’ve been nerding out about how the show depicts the financial forces that shape the ER’s day-to-day problems like crowding, eternal wait times, and scary bills. For this episode, we got Dr. Alex Janke, an emergency medicine doctor and health policy researcher to nerd out with us

en

23:40

Winning a two-year fight over a bogus bill

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/03/20

A few months ago, we got a note from a listener named Meagan, who wanted to thank us. She said the stories she heard on this show had given her the advice and encouragement she needed to finally win a fight against a medical bill she didn’t owe — a battle she’d been waging for more than two years. As Meagan tells us, those two years were filled with wild twists and turns and a lot of disappointment. We hear what kept her motivated and encouraged despite all the setbacks – and

en

19:31

A medical-debt watchdog gets sidelined by the new...

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/02/27

A federal agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — CFPB for short — has taken big steps to help people with medical debt. In early February, the Trump administration moved to effectively shutter the agency. We talked with credit counselor Lara Ceccarelli about how the CFPB has helped clients at the nonprofit where she works, and how she’s navigating the sudden change. And consumer-rights advocate Chi Chi Wu — an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center

en

4:49

Big news: Our ‘First Aid Kit’ newsletter is now weekly

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/02/24

Hey – real quick: some big news from the team at An Arm and a Leg. Our First Aid Kit newsletter is going weekly! First Aid Kit brings you advice from our show and more on how to survive and navigate America’s health care system. And allow us to introduce First Aid Kit’s new writer, Claire Davenport. When she was our intern last summer, she reviewedAn Arm and a Leg’s entire catalog of episodes, and took notes along the way. Now she’s bringing the practical lessons from

en

9:33

How do you deal with wild drug prices?

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/02/03

We’re kicking off a new reporting project about how much we pay for our medicine — and what we can maybe do about it — and we want to hear your stories. Because: Getting a case of sticker shock with a prescription happens all the time. So we’re asking: What have you done — or tried to do — to get the medicines you need at prices you can afford? And what did you learn that might be useful for other people to know? Maybe you learned a strategy that actually WORKED

en

25:26

The ‘Shkreli Awards’ — for dysfunction and...

An Arm and a Leg ·

2025/01/16

You remember a guy named Martin Shkreli? If his name rings a bell, it’s probably because back in 2015, he jacked up the price of an old drug — from around $13 a pill to $750. The media dubbed him “the pharma bro,” and he became a symbol of brazen pharmaceutical greed.Now, he’s the namesake for the Shkreli Awards — a kind of Oscars for the most outrageous examples of greed, fraud, and general brokenness in American health care.Every year, a health care think tank called the Lown Institute ranks the

en

157 results

Similar Podcasts

Voices of Life

APG Mannheim

Promo Estereo Podcast

Promo Estereo

Talking Timelines Podcast

Talkingtimelines

גיקונומי

ראם שרמן ודורון ניר

Drømmefanger

Drømmefanger