Last May, just a few months into the second Trump Administration, changes to federal health programs were happening at a bewildering pace. We brought in KFF Heath News Chief Washington Correspondent Julie Rover to help give us — and you — a big picture look at what some changes would mean.

A year-and-change later, we wanted to check back in. We talk about the “crumbling Jenga tower” of public health infrastructure, the fallout from cuts to Obamacare subsidies, and Medicaid, and what Julie sees happening in 2028 and beyond (including a whisper of hope.)

Plus, we get an update on Julie’s growing t-shirt collection and a new series she’s starting on her health policy news podcast What the Health?

You can read a transcript of this episode here.

Want to dive deeper into those state Medicaid cuts we talked about? Julie did a whole episode of What the Health? about them. Listen here.

Want weekly updates from the team, including some of our most practical advice for dealing with the outrageous cost of health care? Sign up for our newsletter, First Aid Kit.

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.

After her husband L was hospitalized for a severe mental health crisis, Teressa barely had a moment to breathe before the health insurance denials started coming in, burying their family in medical debt.

But Teressa’s a fighter, and an organized one at that — ready to endure months of back and forth until she stumbled on a "secret door" to reversing her husband’s insurance denials: the external review.

In this episode of Paper Trail, a podcast from the investigative journalists at ProPublica, health care reporter Duaa Eldeib and host Jessica Lussenhop follow Teressa's journey to discovering this powerful and little-known tool — and putting it to work.

Could an external review help you? Check out ProPublica’s write-up, which includes the types of denials eligible for this kind of appeal.

And for more stories about appealing health insurance denials, you can check out our Starter Pack, which features episodes like this one about writing a killer appeal letter.

Here's a transcript of this episode.

Want weekly updates from the team, including some of our most practical advice for dealing with the outrageous cost of health care? Sign up for our newsletter, First Aid Kit.

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.

While we’re busy working on some big projects this summer, we’re re-releasing some of our most ambitious and useful reporting to date.

Last year, we set out on a mission: Collect all the best advice about what to do when your prescription drugs cost more than you can afford.

Our listeners wrote to us about their experiences getting around this most demoralizing — and distinctly American — problem in order to get the medicine they need.

Those responses allowed us to map a whole landscape of potential fixes — none a guaranteed solution for everyone, every time — but all worth knowing about.

In this episode, you’ll meet some of the intrepid navigators charting the path — including a dad on a mission to afford his daughter’s epilepsy medication, a Medicare coach who helps seniors save tens of thousands of dollars on meds, a pharmaceutical sales rep with a brilliant short-term fix, and other generous and smart fellow travelers.

We documented all their advice and more in our Prescription Drug Playbook.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

Want weekly updates from the Arm and a Leg team, including more practical advice for dealing with the outrageous cost of health care? Sign up for our newsletter, First Aid Kit.

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.