An Arm and a Leg

Review your drug plan now, and potentially save thousands • An Arm And a Leg Hey there, Back when we reported our Prescription Drug Playbook series about how to avoid sticker shock at the pharmacy counter, one piece of advice came

Our “First Aid Kit” this week is all about why you should review your plan’s drug coverage this (and every) open enrollment season – and how.

@danweissmann.bsky.social was on the Financial Feminist podcast sharing some of our best strategies to avoid getting ripped off by our health care system. Listen here: https://play.megaphone.fm/5gu_laxbqrcq_sq_uce-tg

A Few Good Things From 2025 (Really) - KFF Health News Good news for health care access this year includes new state laws to rein in prior authorization and medical debt collectors.

LISTEN: Good news for health care access this year includes new state laws to rein in prior authorization and medical debt collectors. @danweissmann.bsky.social @armandalegshow.bsky.social kffhealthnews.org/news/podcast...

Fight health insurance — with help from AI • An Arm And a Leg A new tool helps fight back against health insurance denials, by writing appeal letters, using artificial intelligence.

In this episode from our archives: A Bay Area software engineer made a new AI tool to fight insurance denials. Listen here:

As Health Companies Get Bigger, So Do the Bills. It’s Unclear if Trump’s Team Will Intervene. - KFF Health News As health systems, doctor groups, and insurers merge into ever-bigger giants, patient care gets more expensive. Yet the Trump administration has sent mixed signals about its willingness to intervene —...

“It’s not competition. It’s more like collusion. They don’t care about price.” More health systems, doctor groups, and insurers are merging into giants. The Trump administration may not be willing or able to intervene. ⤵️
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Support • An Arm And a Leg An Arm and a Leg is a scrappy, independent production. Your contributions go a long way to helping us make the show.

We’re raising money for 2026, and through the end of this month, your donation is matched two-for-freaking-one. Give us $100, we get $300. Pretty sick deal right? If you wanna pitch in, head here:

A medical-debt watchdog gets sidelined by the new administration • An Arm And a Leg The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is offline (for now) – what that means for people with medical debt.

For more on the health impacts of the “backdoor dismantling” of government agencies, check out our prior coverage on the Trump admin’s efforts to effectively shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: armandalegshow.com/episode/cfpb/

The quiet collapse of America's reproductive health safety net "People don't realize how much these clinics hold together the local health system until they're gone," said the head of Maine Family Planning clinics.

"Some people may find another clinic, but a large share simply won't, and we'll see that reflected in higher rates of unintended pregnancy, untreated infections, and later-stage disease.”

A sobering @cbsnews.com read:

The prescription drug playbook • An Arm And a Leg The high cost of prescription meds in the US is a crisis: one in four adults say they’ve skipped taking a prescription in the past year because of cost.

Check out our two-part podcast series and our newsletters full of helpful links and tools: armandalegshow.com/starter-pack...

How to get lower prices on prescription drugs : Life Kit Prescription drug prices can be costly. What are you supposed to do if you can't afford medication? In this episode, Dan Weissmann, host of KUOW's podcast An Arm and a Leg, shares how to find discounts on prescription medications and navigate the health care system when drugs cost more than you expected.Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekitSign up for our newsletter here.Have an episode idea or feedback you want to share? Email us at lifekit@npr.orgSupport the show and listen to it sponsor-free by signing up for Life Kit+ at plus.npr.org/lifekit

Earlier this year, we put together a package of reporting about what to do when you can’t afford your meds. This week, @danweissmann.bsky.socialwent on @npr.orgLife Kit to break down our biggest takeaways: https://www.npr.org/2025/11/03/nx-s1-5592923/how-to-get-lower-prices-on-prescription-drugs.

Big news: This month, every dollar you donate to an Arm and a Leg gets TRIPLED. That’s thanks to a journalism fundraising program called NewsMatch. Donate $50, and boom – it becomes $150. Love what we do and want your gift to count extra? Head to https://armandalegshow.com/support/

Some things that didn’t suck in 2025 (really) • An Arm And a Leg In states like Nebraska and Virginia, new laws could help a ton of people. In states like Nebraska and Virginia, new laws could help a ton of people.

This might shock you, but not all health care news was totally sucky in 2025. Like new state regulations for insurers and debt collectors. Our first episode in a series about this year’s little wins:

Medicare: Big pitfalls to avoid, part deux • An Arm And a Leg Hey there — Ermahgerd, Medicare is confusing. Or as John Oliver said in a recent Last Week Tonight segment on Medicare Advantage, “On a scale of one to

Signing up for Medicare means navigating a minefield of misleading ads, confusing deadlines, and an alphabet soup of parts and supplements. In our First Aid Kit newsletter, we get into those ABCs:

Doctor Tripped Up by $64K Bill for Ankle Surgery and Hospital Stay - KFF Health News A doctor in Colorado became the patient after an accident totaled her car and sent her to the operating room. The hospital kept her overnight, but her insurer stopped paying after she left the emergency room.

“Sixty-three thousand dollars for a broken ankle and a cut to the knee, with no head injury or internal damage... just to stay there overnight.”

@kffhealthnews.org 

FAQs: Health Insurance Marketplace and the ACA Archives | KFF Some consumers with little or no credit history, such as young adults or recent immigrants, may have difficulty setting up accounts on HealthCare.gov. That is because the federal Marketplace uses real-time identity proofing techniques to protect consume...

We have answers to almost 200 ACA Marketplace FAQs, including questions about applying for marketplace plans, the enhanced premium tax credits, special enrollment periods, and more.

Explore them here: https://on.kff.org/4fzAviF

Credit Where It's Due • An Arm And a Leg Credit reporting bureaus announced in April that they would take most medical debt off of people's credit reports. And it's a bigger deal than we thought.

For now, some other protections worth reviewing are still in place — like that medical debts less than a year old and/or under $500 shouldn’t appear on your credit report: armandalegshow.com/episode/cred...

Medical debt news update, plus an announcement! • An Arm And a Leg Hey there. We’ve got a couple quick updates for you this week. First: some developments in a story we’ve been following since February about medical debt,

Earlier this year, we reported on a federal judge who similarly ruled federal law preempts more than 10 states with their own bans on medical debt credit reporting. And we’ll keep following this story: armandalegshow.com/first-aid-ki...

According to KFF, this move will not immediately roll back existing state protections. But as one source notes: “This rule will have a chilling effect on states’ willingness to pass these critical patient protections.”

Trump Team Takes Aim at State Laws Shielding Consumers' Credit Scores From Medical Debt - KFF Health News Reversing guidance from the Biden administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau concludes that states cannot bar medical debt from their residents’ credit reports.

An important @kffhealthnews.org update — Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a guidance asserting that federal law bars states from restricting medical debts from credit reports. kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

So Your Insurance Dropped Your Doctor. Now What? - KFF Health News Patients sometimes find themselves scrambling for affordable care when a contract dispute causes a hospital — and most of the doctors and other clinicians who work there — to be dropped from an insura...

Waiting it out, seeing if you qualify for an exception, and getting familiar with what “out-of-pocket” means … these are some of the options you have when your insurer and hospital are in a contract dispute.

More in this @kffhealthnews.org story here: kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Medicare: Big pitfalls to avoid, part 1 • An Arm And a Leg Hey there — Our first podcast episode about Medicare — covering things to know before signing up — had a subtitle: “This one kind of blew our minds.”

We walk through the key differences between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage in a recent "First Aid Kit" newsletter: armandalegshow.com/first-aid-ki...

A wonderful, and of course, hilarious, breakdown of the pitfalls of Medicare Advantage plans.

California takes on pharma giants with plans to sell its own insulin California is set to start selling low-cost insulin pens this January, the first such move by a state to circumvent the pharmaceutical industry and combat diabetes.

Up next? California state officials say naloxone nasal spray and asthma inhalers: www.statnews.com/pharmalot/20...

Affordable insulin is coming: California to launch $11 state-branded pens as part of CalRx initiative California's first insulin pens will be for sale two years after the governor’s promised delivery date in 2024.

Now, California’s insulin is ready to hit the market — at $11 a pen. Check out the update: calmatters.org/health/2025/...

California plans to make its own insulin and sell it super-cheap. Really. • An Arm And a Leg California has put up $100 million to produce its own insulin. How's it going to work? (IS it going to work?)

Three years ago, we reported on plans by the state of California to produce its own insulin and sell it for cheap:

NYC cancels $135M in medical debt for 75,000 New Yorkers: ‘Peace of mind’ The city invested $18 million to provide one-time relief from medical debt for 500,000 working-class New Yorkers, resulting in over $2 billion in debt relief.

Some positive news for 75,000 New Yorkers heading into the weekend...

Medicare: Big pitfalls to avoid, part 1 • An Arm And a Leg Hey there — Our first podcast episode about Medicare — covering things to know before signing up — had a subtitle: “This one kind of blew our minds.”

In part one in our “First Aid Kit” series all about Medicare, we break down the difference between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage —- and why you don’t want to get it wrong when you sign up.

Getting insurance to pay for therapy • An Arm And a Leg Not for the faint of heart. But we’ve got a roadmap from someone who’s done it.

And jotted down the most important notes in our First Aid Kit newsletter: armandalegshow.com/first-aid-ki...

Mental health 'ghost networks' — and a ghost-buster • An Arm And a Leg Trying to find a therapist can be a horror story. It's also a ghost story , as in "ghost networks." Meet a ghost-buster.

We reported on mental health ghost networks — and what to do when you’re getting ghosted — in this episode from 2023: armandalegshow.com/episode/ther...

Private Medicare, Medicaid plans exaggerate in-network mental health options, watchdogs say A federal probe of Medicare and Medicaid plans run by private insurance companies found that the plan operators often overstated how many mental health providers were available in their networks.

@cbsnews.com.web.brid.gy reports on a new Office of Inspector General report about mental health ghost networks in Medicare Advantage and privately-run Medicaid plans.
www.cbsnews.com/news/private...