Financial Feminist - 261. Save Money on Medical Bills and Navigate Health Insurance Like a Pro with Dan Weissmann

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Healthcare in America shouldn’t feel like a rigged game––but too often it does. Leaving many people feeling swindled by confusing insurance plans, surprise medical bills, and endless fine print. To help navigate this complex system, I'm joined by Dan Weissmann, journalist and host of the NPR podcast An Arm and a Leg. Dan explains why U.S. healthcare feels broken––and how to get the most out of a flawed system. He'll share strategies to protect your finances and well-being, from selecting the right health insurance during open enrollment to identifying billing errors, challenging unfair charges, and saving hundreds on prescriptions. Dan’s links: Website: https://armandalegshow.com/ Visit ⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠ to stay up to date and find any resources mentioned on our show! 00:00 Intro 01:15 Why Healthcare Is So Expensive 03:00 The System Is Confusing by Design 06:00 Understanding What You Actually Owe 08:30 What To Do When You Get a Medical Bill 10:45 How To Talk to Your Insurance Company 13:00 The Hidden Traps in High-Deductible Plans 15:30 Should You Pay Your Bill Right Away? 18:00 How Medical Debt Affects Your Credit 20:15 How To Negotiate a Medical Bill 22:00 What To Do If You Can’t Afford Care 24:30 The Emotional Cost of Healthcare 27:00 Why Women Carry More Medical Debt 30:00 The Future of Healthcare Transparency 33:00 The Wildest Story From An Arm and a Leg 36:00 How To Be Your Own Healthcare Advocate 38:00 How To Find a Fair Price for Care 41:00 Quick Wins To Save on Medical Costs 43:00 What True Financial Wellness Means 44:00 Outro + Resources Special thanks to our sponsors: Squarespace Go to www.squarespace.com/FFPOD to save 10% off your first website or domain purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump wants to make your health care more expensive, and you need to know exactly how to navigate those changes. Healthcare in the U.S. costs an arm and a leg, sometimes literally. And my guest today would know, because that's literally what he named this podcast. Journalist and podcast host Dan Weissman joins us to unpack why our health care system feels like walking into a casino where the house always wins and what you can actually do about it. We're not just playing against the house. We're kind of being ushered straight to the table where the World Series of Poker is being played.

And around the table are people who belong at this table, the health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies and the big hospital chains and all the other people who really know how to make money on health care. We are playing against them and they are basically all playing for our chips. We talk about everything from choosing the right health insurance during open enrollment to what Medicare advantage really means to how to challenge unfair medical bills and save money on prescription. Can you walk me through what people should look for when choosing a health insurance plan during open enrollment? Yes. You're going to look at all the plans in front of you, and here's what you're not going to do. If you've ever looked at a hospital bill and thought, this can't be right. This episode is your guide to fighting back and protecting your wallet and your health, especially amidst all of the crazy changes. Let's get into it.

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As we continue to grow, this is going to be such a helpful resource for her first 100K, for me as an entrepreneur, and I think for all entrepreneurs out there. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash ff pod. That's net suite.com slash ff pod. NetSweet.com slash ff pod. Okay, so, Dan, people say that health care costs an arm and a leg in the U.S. I mean, you named your podcast after this. And you once compared it to walking into a casino where the house always wins.

Can you break down that analogy for us? Why are we losing so much money just to get basic health care? So we're walking into this casino, and we're not just playing against the house. We're kind of being ushered straight to the table where the World Series of poker is being plate. And around the table, you know, are people who belong at this table because they're really good and they have lots of chips. And it's, you know, the health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies and the big hospital chains and all the other people who really know how to make money on health care. We are playing against them. And they are basically all playing

for our chips. We are the sucker at the table. And so that's the metaphor. I mean, we're just screw because when we enter this, we're not, it's not a level playing field, right? You get a bill from a big entity. They've got a huge team of people who have kind of designed the process to like get the most money out of you they can. You sign up for health insurance. That insurance contract you're signing is every bit as much a piece of like finely tuned financial engineering as a derivatives contract, right? The health insurance people have made sure that's true. Like all of these people have like experts whispering in their ears and we are here never having played poker before like that's how it is why is it this way the metaphor may break down a little bit

there i like i that's my answer to everything yeah i mean that's like we yeah we have and you know we we we united states is you know kind of the only major developed country where health care is pretty fully integrated into our kind of whole capitalist deal. So lots of people have the opportunity to make lots of money and they keep getting better at it. You have shared that this work is deeply personal to you. You've made career decisions over health insurance. I think that's something all of us can relate to. Can you talk a little bit more about that and what made you want to get to the bottom of this system?

Oh, sure. I mean, I was born with a little congenital. heart condition. I have to get seen every year. It doesn't bother me. I can do whatever I want pretty much. I'm not supposed to lift heavy, heavy weights, but like I can do whatever I want. I get seen once a year. There's tests. When I first left a regular job like 20 years ago and I was like, I'll buy my own insurance. It'll be cool. And the insurance companies were like, no, you won't. This was before Obamacare. They were like, you're not insurable, dude. I was like, I can do whatever I want. They were like, no, you can't. You can't have health insurance and do that.

That was a bummer. So, you know, I kind of structured things in my life like lots of people do to make sure I can have health insurance through work. A bunch of years ago now, before I started making this podcast, I left a job and I didn't know what I was going to do next. And I was like, hmm, I might need another career. You know, I'm a reporter. Being a reporter is not like a growth field for sure. And I thought, I need another career. And I was like, and it's okay. Maybe I don't have to do this particular thing anymore. And a friend asked like, well, isn't there something that you'd want to do, some story? I was like, well, yeah, there's this one thing. Because as a reporter too, and it's just a person walking around, you just, you talk to people whose lives are just

turned completely upside down. And I was like, this is, this is like underwitness. And we don't understand enough about it and we don't hear enough about it. While I was getting ready to try to make the first season of this show, we were like, my wife who also runs a small business, and I were like, well, what will we do? We'll need to get insurance. Obamacare now exists. We can do this. And I looked up the plans and there's tape of me doing this like in our very first episode. I was like, oh man, to get these tests, like I get like a couple of scans, you know, I got to go to a specific place where they see people like me with my little condition. There's like one in Chicago where I live. And I was like, is any of that, does any of the plans in the Obamacare

marketplace include them in their network? Yeah. The answer was no. And I was like, well, okay, how much do these tests cost out of pocket? How much is this going to cost to pay for it? And I look back at, you know, the statements I'd gotten the previous year. And the answer was, at that time, $20,000. And I was like, all right, well, but there's this thing called out of pocket maximum, right? Like there's some maximum that I have to pay. And you can hear me doing this on the show. I was like, okay, so no, out-of-pocket maximum only applies to in-network services. So there is no out-of-pocket maximum, even under Obamacare, for things that are out-of-network.

I was like, we are hosed. We had a shot that we were taking at kind of buying health insurance as a business through my wife's business. And, you know, one of the kind of narrative hooks of that first season was like, is it going to work? And it did. And it worked for us. And that's how we're here. But, like, yeah, that's my personal little story. And I'm just like a super, super lucky person.

It was literally a full-time job. And then you turned it into it. Like, you think about all of the people, I mean, everybody listening to the show, you have jobs, you have lives, you have kids, you have things going on. And on a good day, right, you might not need your health insurance. On a okay day when your kid gets sick or you get sick, you need health insurance. And then on a really bad day, you need it. And it's like, where is the time and energy and knowledge coming from to be able to navigate this very complex thing that shouldn't be complex?

And we talk a lot on this show about how, to your point about, you know, reading dividend reports, it's very similar where if you are in debt, they keep you in debt by making it as complicated as possible to get out. If you want to invest, they make the stock market and the platforms that you invest in the stock market on extremely complicated so that you hand over your money to a wealth advisor manager who's going to charge you 2% a year. All of this is on purpose. So when you're thinking about the health care system in the U.S., why is it so expensive compared to other countries? Like, where is the money actually going? Oh, well, a lot of places, the important place it goes is to a lot of profits, right? A lot of shareholders

are very happy investors in pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies and for-profit health care. It's going to profits. It's going to people who have high-paying jobs, making sure those profits stay there. And interestingly, people who work in these systems will tell you sometimes, like some of it goes to kind of accommodate the friction of what regulation we have on health care, right? It's like, oh, we got to have a lot of compliance, we got to do a lot of this. And some of that's true.

Largely, another big chunk of it is going towards these players fighting each other, right? Like, I'm a pharma company, the kind of what are called the pharmacy benefit managers, the kind of like pharmacy side of the insurance world, is always trying to take a piece out of my action.

And I got to find other workarounds. and I got to like pad my profits over here in case they take a piece of me over there. And if I'm an insurance company, it's the exact same thing. And if I'm running a hospital chain, it's the exact same thing. I'm swimming in a pool where everybody else is a shark. And I got to make sure that, you know, I don't get eaten. And so, you know, when I remember, and I don't remember the numbers here, but when Bernie Sanders was running for president in 20,

There was a story in Politico that was like, look, he could really hurt Democrats in Pennsylvania because like Pittsburgh, so many jobs are in this kind of health care administration world. Like he outlined, like, this is how much money we could save if we did Medicare for all. We're cutting out all of this, like, infighting and doing all this stuff. And like, a lot of people have those jobs. And so Politico was like, Democrats could totally lose Pennsylvania because all this, because, you know, the Republicans are going to be like, Bernie Sanders is going to put you out of work by putting in Medicare for all. Well, I mean, it's very similar to the conversation about like clean energy, right? As it's like the coal jobs are going away. And it's like, yeah, they are.

And that sucks. And also, maybe this is better for the collective. And I think that one of the things that you just mentioned, which I think is so important to think about, is that it almost is like, I mean, it is. It's private companies competing for your business, just like anything else. Nike and Adidas have marketing budgets. They have project managers. They have Facebook ads and whatever. And I don't know the legality or if anybody, I don't know if big pharma is, they probably are. OZMPIC. I'm getting the OZMPIC ads. So I know they are. It's like, that's something that's so interesting is that they have to make all this money because they are in competition with every other health care company or every other pharmaceutical company. I mean, yes and, right? Like, because unlike Nike and Adidas, we're like, well, I want to be a performance athlete or I want to look cool. Having, you know, we all have bodies and we all need help keeping from getting sick and dying before we need. to. This is a money or your life proposition. And there is not robust competition in it, right?

There are some insurance companies that are competing to sell you plans, but not that many. These industries all keep getting more consolidated. There's fewer insurance companies than there used to be. There's fewer everything than there used to be. Hospitals have been glomming together in giant chains regionally and nationally. So, yeah, I mean, there's competition, but they're competing with each other for who can get who can be the most profitable in some ways in some ways i think they're really competing for investor dollars how do we show that we have the biggest market share how do we show that we're the best investment we have to be bigger and more consolidated than the other guy out there so we have the biggest moat around us compared to

them i remember one of the first stories we did and this because it goes down to a more micro level two was about a drug that came on the market priced at $500,000. And I was like, how did that happen? And this was a drug that was in wide use in Europe for decades, but nobody had run it through clinical trials in the United States. It treated a fairly rare condition. And, you know, I talked to the guy who developed it in the U.S., which basically met, like, ran it through the clinical, got the money from investors to run it through clinical trials

here. And he was like, look, you know, it does cost X millions of dollars to run that clinical trial. Yeah. To get the FDA approval. The people I'm hitting up for those X millions of dollars are hearing pitches from people just like me who are saying, I'm going to get you 100 X. I'm going to give you 150x, right? Your investment's going to be paid, you know, a billion to one. And so if I didn't promise my investors that kind of return,

They would never, I would never have gotten this many millions of dollars. I mean, which is why there are, like, policy folks who are like, right, this, these FDA approval trials should be paid for by some other mechanism than getting investors to pony up for them, right? We could have a pool of public dollars. That's a, that sounds good to me. You know, I'm not an economist. I haven't done it.

But, like, okay, that makes sense. But it certainly makes sense in the context of that story. You know, and if you're Eli Lilly or any of the other companies, you're in that boat where, like, you're running that company, your company's stock price is the most important thing to keep in your job. I just have this picture of, like, a bunch of, like, Dr. Evils, like, in a dark room somewhere, stroking their cats and, like, you know, putting their fingers together. And it's like, this is not unserious shit. Like you just said, it's like, it's literally your life. It is your health. And for the thousandth time on the show, it's like, it pisses me off so much.

It's like why you're playing monopoly of how do I get as much property as possible? How do I get as much asset, as many assets as possible? But with people's health care and lives. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, I mean, the part, it makes me very sad, honestly. you know, when the CEO of

United Healthcare was killed, right? Colleges of his were like, he was one of the good guys. He wanted to, you know, make things better. And I think they were serious. I think they were like, but their, but their idea better is like

what's, what are some what are some incremental ways? What are some incremental ways we could make things a little better within the context of while maintaining shareholder value, right? That's, that's, that's, that's always first. But like, could we find things that would make things a little better for people within that context? And the answer is always going to be not nearly enough, right? Not if,

not if your shareholders come first. So let's get into the sum of the information and the questions that a lot of people have. So like, let's talk about Medicaid. So the Medicaid work requirement. It's coming fast. It sounds like it can kick millions of people off their coverage. What is the real impact here for everyday people, especially people in rural areas or who are already juggling low-wage jobs? For sure. And I'll just say, like, this kind of macro question is not my beat. So I can tell you generally what I know. Sure. We looked at Medicaid. We looked at Medicaid for the first time last year. Medicaid Medicare at having done, but like because it took me a long time to feel like

I knew enough about health care to go into this more complicated area. And here's what you learned. During COVID, in the early part of COVID, right, one of the things that happened was they loosened up some things that they could stay on Medicaid without having to kind of pony up a million documents all the time. And so after a few years, that ended. The kind of COVID public health emergency ended. And that loosening kind of hit the sunset.

And people had to kind of re-up. And I talked to folks who were like, yeah, we've seen this happen before because Tennessee had done something similar 10 years prior where they'd loosen things and then tightened them. And what happened was people couldn't stay on Medicaid. It got so hard because of all of the bureaucratic requirements. And of course, there's one, do you understand all the. things you're being asked to do. Two, do you have time to do all the things you're being

asked to do. And three, does the system on the other side accurately understand what you're telling them? And if any of the answers are no, like in one case, one family was kicked off in Medicaid for not responding to email that had been sent to the wrong address, right? So this happens all the time. You add kind of more stringent work requirements. You're adding to what people call administrative burden, right? This was the burden of just like showing like, yes, my income's still low. I still need this. You add the administrative burden of like, now I got to somehow find a way to prove to you that I still have this job, that I still work this many hours a week. I got to navigate through your system in my spare time. And by the way, being poor and work

in a low wage job that means I still qualified for Medicaid keeps you pretty busy. Yeah. So, That's, I mean, I don't, I can't tell you off the top of my head the numbers of people they say are going to lose Medicaid, but that's, that's basically the why. It's so expensive to be poor in the United States. Like, it's so expensive to be poor. Your time, your energy, your money, your resources, all of that. When you're just trying to get by, it's the same with, uh, the way people feel about banks or the access to banking product. Like, it is a million hoops to jump through in order to just get by. And it's so stressful, right?

Yes, yes. We don't make, we're not, like, to a certain degree, you know, being activated by the flight or fight response can kind of give you a jolt of energy. But, like, chronically, it burns you out. Sustained. Right. Yeah. And we don't, we don't operate on our best when we're under that kind of pressure all the time.

Okay, so Medicare, people assume it's this magical free health care that starts at 65. Nope, that's not the reality. What is the biggest surprise about Medicare generally, but specifically, like, costs that you wish everybody knew before they turned 65? Yeah, this is a really big one. And this also took me several years before I was like, okay, now I can start to understand Medicare. And there's kind of two things in there related. One is signing up for Medicare is kind of complicated. There's a lot of choices to make, and Medicare is not free.

You pay a premium for part of it, and under what we call traditional Medicare, but the government runs it, kind of the way it started in 1966, there are things that are not fully covered, and so you need to take out a second policy. People call it a supplement or meta-gap. So to do regular Medicare means you're paying some money out of pocket, and there are, you know, deductibles and other things. Medicare doesn't mean that, like, you've closed the, you've kind of drawn the curtain on the question of like, now I never have to pay for healthcare again.

I have to think about medical bills again. It helps a lot. It helps a lot. But it's not free. And there's, like, the most surprising thing that I learned is it like, there's deadlines when you sign up for Medicare. And there's one of them where if you miss it, if you don't sign up within a year, I think, of turning 65, you pay a penalty, like a fine every year for the,

rest of your life. And the longer you miss the deadline by, the bigger it is. I mean, it's like, what? Really? Really? So, like, stay on top of it. So that's one. Is that like, Medicare isn't, doesn't mean health care is completely free. Now, here's the other really important thing, is that if you or someone you love is approaching Medicare age, they'll probably see a lot of people being like, hey, come to my free seminar, we'll tell you all about how to sign up from Medicare. That person is likely to be an insurance broker. And they are likely to say, look, regular Medicare, it's super expensive. You're going to have to buy this supplement policy. You're going to pay these other things. Or you could sign up for Medicare Advantage.

And here, I can offer you this, I can offer you this plan with like almost no premium or maybe no premium. And I can offer you things that Medicare doesn't cover at all, like vision and dental and hearing, which, yeah, Medicare doesn't cover. those things. So that's a whole thing. And, you know, that sounds super, super good. But here's the thing in most states. Once you've signed up for Medicare Advantage, you can't, it's like a no-baxies thing. You can't go back and be like, actually, I'd rather nutritional Medicare. And the reason that's important is because, well, Medicare Advantage is run by private insurance companies like United Healthcare, all the people that we love so much to deal with as non-retired people with all the

administrative burdens and the pre-authorizations and the denials and all the time you spend on the phone with them. And this is as people who like, hopefully we're not needing a ton of medical care all the time. You know, you are signing up the oldest, sickest version of you to deal with those people if and when you're really hurting, right? And I talk to people who are like, oh my gosh, you know, like I developed a big health condition and like United Health Group or Cigna or whoever it was like, no, we don't think you really need it. And like, that's, I mean, I talk people like that who are younger and who are, and I've talked people like that who are on Medicare Advantage. And they were like, I can't do this. Like, I can't get the health care I need. So that's a

huge consideration for me is like, as I, you know, look toward hoping Medicare is there, and that traditional Medicare is there when I'm ready for it, I hope traditional Medicare is there because I don't want the oldest, sickest, weakest, tiredest version of myself who's the most in need

of good medical care to have to engage in the kind of battles that I chronicle all the time. So what is your advice for someone navigating that? Like, how do they not get totally overwhelmed? How do they make smart insurance decisions? Oh, actually I have an answer for this, which is, yeah.

I'm like, give me answers because all of this feels so, pretty overwhelming, right? Pretty overwhelming. Yeah, at least, at least, at least for now, right? Because this is a federally funded program, so who knows what's going to happen going forward. Every state has a program called SHIP, S-H-I-P, and what it stands for is actually a little bit different, but state is usually the S and health insurance is the P, but is the I, you get the idea. there's uh but it's basically free counseling for people who are signing up for or dealing with

medicare and like counseling meaning like advice like you call somebody and i had a friend a couple weeks ago who was like hey i'm coming up medicaid you have you know it's your advice and was like get in touch make an appointment with a counselor for your local shit office and she was like will do and afterwards after she texted me she was like okay that was a two and a half hour phone call and I'm still kind of like put myself back together but thank you so much because like can you imagine can you imagine like go I mean god I saying this I'm like well who the heck knows what any government program is going to look like coming up but but to put it in the other way like the idea that you could call somebody and get somebody who does this every day to talk to you

for two and a half hours about this process and what it's like for you, what your options are, right? Because again, like you're going to sign up for a Metagap plan. Well, there are, there's literally an alphabet soup of those. There's like a type A, B, G, F, and D. There's letters that are missing from the sequence. I don't remember which ones they are. And then they're each offered, and they cover different things. And they're each offered by different carriers. So, you know, am I choosing regular Medicare, traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage? Oh, traditional Medicare, I need a supplement. Well, which kind of supplement?

All of that. So, yeah, having somebody you can call who's not the insurance broker who's, I mean, they're like, I can sit with a Medicare Advantage plan and get a commission, right, when you do. The people at ship are just there to help you at. And by the way, they're also there when you're on Medicare. So I talked with a woman recently who runs one of these programs and she's like every year we invite seniors because one thing you never get away from working with private insurance is drug coverage. That's its own part of Medicare. There's a whole separate alphabet soup.

There's Medicare A, B, C, and D is for drugs. And that's entirely run by private insurance companies. There are often multiple that will offer you a plan in a given year and you got to choose among them. and every year they change. Every year you got to re-up. And so, you know, she's like, people come in. I'm like, let's look at, there's a list called the formulary that says which drugs, which plans cover at what rates. And you want to pick the right one for you because otherwise life gets very hard.

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build a life you love is out now it is a new york times bestseller that has sold nearly 300 000 copies and it is not just another financial guide. It's everything you need to get better with money step by step, but through the signature feminist lens that you know and love here at Her First 100K. There is so much in the book that we've never discussed on the podcast. There are homework assignments. There are deep dive lessons and there's even more information that you've never heard of here on the show.

You can get a copy of Financial Feminist wherever you get your books. And if you're listening on Spotify right now and are a premium member, you can get the audiobook read by me for free. You can get signed copies and learn where it's sold at Her First 100K.com slash FFPod. Okay, so before we move on to just general health insurance questions, we're kind of dancing around it, but like, what does happen if he is doing the thing he says he's going to do with passing the big beautiful bill, which is that Medicare gets, is it Medicaid gets cut? Like, what happens if, like, I, you just said this lovely public service, which is like a phone

line, you can call and get questions answered. And I was like, I literally had a thought where I was like, that sounds like Donald Trump's worst nightmare. Like, that sounds like the thing that he would cut first. So what happens when these things start going away? I don't know, but it's really bad. Yeah. I mean, that's all I can say. I mean, like, I have not yet heard that ship is being cut the way some other things have been cut.

But, you know, this is year one of this presidency. so we don't know. Three more years, baby. What's coming down the pike. Call your reps. That's my answer to that. Call your reps. Do what you can do.

Okay. Let's talk about health insurance generally because we get so many questions about it. I've done some content and some helping people navigate like negotiating medical bills or just like looking at their bill to see what's covered and what's not. I have a video that went viral when I first started like on TikTok

talking like 2020 about how I went into the gynecologist, and that was a routine visit, but they didn't bill it as such. And if I wouldn't have caught it, right? Like, it would cost me, I think, a couple hundred dollars. So first of all, can you walk me through what people should look for when choosing a health insurance plan during open enrollment? Yes. You're going to look at all the plans in front of you. And here's what you're not going to do. If there's any way to avoid it, you're not going to be like, what's the least amount of money I I have to shell out per month for this. Note that, like, right, they all have different premiums.

Set that aside for a second. Don't make that, don't just look at that and circle that one and go. Because you need to make a couple of calculations because the one that is the least out of pocket for the premium per month could cost you a lot over the course of the year. So you want to make basically two little lists, two spreadsheets to whatever, like two columns in it. And one is, what do I need in terms of health care? what my things cost, and a normal year for me. And a normal year for you is just different from anybody else.

I see this therapist every week. And, you know, if I didn't, like, that could be bad. Are they covered? Or in the case of, you know, I have type 1 diabetes. I need to make sure that my endocrinologist is covered. Or, like, I'm planning to have a kid this year. Or I need knee surgery next year. Whatever you know is your deal, what's that going to cost you?

And on healthcare.com, you can look to see, like, which doctors and which whatever's are in a network. and also at what level? Because the other question is like, okay, there's going to be out-of-pocket costs and what are they going to be for me? When is my insurance actually going to kick in? What's the deductible?

Like, I have to shell out this much for most things. Some, like, routine doctor's appointments supposedly know before the insurance kicks in at all. And that number can be like on Obamacare marketplace plans typically is in the thousands of dollars per person per year. And that's hard to get away from. But then the question is like, okay, I've paid that.

Then what? Then what are my co-pays? Am I seeing someone all the time? That's going to add up. And then there's my favorite term that I learned in making the show, co-insurance. It's like, dig me. I'm co-insuring myself. If I, God forbid, go to the hospital or whatever, this is a percentage of the total that I'm paying.

Like an 80-20 split, meaning I'm paying 20%, or a 90-10 split or a 70-30 split or a 60-40 split. And again, for most of us in the kind of normal year, I'm not worried too much about that because I'm not planning to spend a lot of time in the hospital. But now you've got to look at the other side, which is what happens if I get hit by a bus this year? Right. Where does that leave me? How wrecked does that leave me? And that's where it's like, well, that that co-insurance, 40% of whatever it costs to be recovered and being hit by a bus, that's a lot. So you kind of do those two calculations and then you kind of, for most of us, For most of us, we're really mainly going to look at that number for like what's a normal year look like because that's going to be scary enough. The hit by a bus year, I mean, that's going to be scary enough.

Like what do I got to shell out every month for an insurance policy that lets me, last time we did this, we did this last year. Like we were looking at policies that were, I could pull it up, but I'm not going to because it's too awful. But like, that was too awful. But like, you know, we could save like a hundred bucks a month on this premium, but it would cost us like. like an extra $5,000 across the course of the year, just doing our normal thing. And I was like, that's not good. We have to pay this extra money. And it's still, and the total, the total between the, between the insurance premium and

what we expect to pay out of pocket is our biggest single expense. And the premium itself, I think, is our single. It's more than our mortgage, right? And it's going to go up again this year. So again, for most of us, thinking about the what, what if I get hit by a bus? thing, like, we just, we can't afford to get it by a bus. But, but, you know, looking at the, um, the question of like, what's a normal year look like for me? That's going to, you should do that calculation because that's what you're going to be. And that's your budget. I think that's

really, really smart is to make sure that you're not just prioritizing, okay, what am I going to pay now? Like, what is my monthly premium versus, yeah, what are the co-pays? What are, what do I need in an average year? You keep saying hit by a bus. And like, I think that is important to think of that. I'm not trying to bring the evil eye on you or anything. No, no, no, no. It's more that, like, I think about, like, yes, there's the hypothetical of hit by a bus. But there's the more real hypothetical for a lot of people listening, because we have mostly women listening, which is, I'm going to have a kid.

And, like, that is financially very similar to I got hit by a bus, but much more realistic. That is something that a lot of us will navigate. So that is just something I want to highlight is... Absolutely. Yes, we're thinking about, oh, yeah, what happens if I get hit by a bus? But what also happens if the much more realistic version of this, which is... Spends time in a hospital. Yeah, right, right.

I'm pregnant or I have a kid. Like, that's incredibly expensive. So if you know that that is something you want to do or something that might happen, plan accordingly. 100% 100% yeah and and that's where it's looking at the network is really important it's like I want to get birth over at this hospital okay find yourself an insurance plan that covers that hospital um it is yeah it is wild I I often say like I think you know parents are the folks who are my kind of like target listeners in a way yeah by the time one like yeah having a kid is most for most people who are generally healthy, it's your first encounter with, like, how much things really

can sock you for. And they cost a lot. Oh, my God. It's insane. And- I think, like, a non-complicated pregnancy costs at least $30,000 to $50,000. Oh, my gosh. Like, that's just a normal pregnancy. You haven't had to go in and get tests every week because you're having morning sickness.

Your baby came out completely healthy and fine and didn't have to get received. any non-normal aftercare. Like, that's a lot of money. And then you add just one variable in there, and it starts getting more expensive. It's enormous. Yeah. And you come out of it,

and now you've got a new human who is at risk for having, there's another body that may need care. And, you know, babies get sick. Okay. I got to keep us, like, I have to keep us in actionable because that's the only way

I'm going to keep us positive. Okay. So. That's my whole show. I'm just like, No one would listen to my show twice, let alone once, if it, you know, we make the commitment like, it's got to be entertaining and empowering and useful. Because otherwise, like, you're not coming back. Nobody wants to sign up to, like, want to crawl under their mattress for the rest of their

lives and listen to that again. Some people who listen to this show do, but that's okay. We try to not keep it that way because every show, every episode, I feel like we get to a point where we're just like fucking capitalism. Okay. So if you're evaluating a job for its health insurance, What coverage or what things am I looking for? Like, I think put yourself in 22-year-old Dan's shoes. Like, the first time he had a job, I'll put myself 22-year-old Tori. Like, what should I be looking for? What are these numbers mean?

What is all of this? Well, I mean, the first, if I'm really 22, then I'm evaluating them against my parents' health insurance and what they could cover me. Yeah, valid. Very true. Okay, so late 20s, 28. Yeah. Now it's 27, 28. It's kind of the Logan's run scenario. You turn 26 and now it's all you. Yeah. I mean, it depends. It depends on you, right? Some people are like, I'm type 1 diabetic or I'm bipolar or I have other things that just require ongoing, ongoing treatment, access to ongoing access to specialists. I can't have my life without these things. So you're looking for like, okay, what am I getting?

And similarly, like, I need, I need, there's certain medicines that I take. I got to have them. Then you are, you are going to HR and you're saying, I need to see the policy and I need to see the drug formulary. This is a very long PDF that lists all the drugs out there and set, and, and for each drug, each drug is placed on a tier. You just like tier one, two, three, four, and then there's often a tier called specialty for things that are super expensive.

And it'll tell you, like, this drug's tier one. You pay five bucks. This drug's tier two. You pay 20 bucks. This drug's tier three. You pay 50 bucks. And again, the numbers vary, depending on your policy. This drug, you pay 50% of whatever it is.

And whatever it is can be thousands of dollars. This drug is an off formulary for us. we don't cover it. So you got to get, you got to get that formulary and you got to hit Control F and find your drugs. And if, and you got to do that for every policy that's available to you. So that's, that's probably number one. And then, yeah, you're looking at like, what are, like, again, what, what, what's a normal

year look like for me is all this process? Like, what does it look like for me? Like, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to maybe go to the doctor once next year to get a check because my mom bugs me, and I'm going to go to the dermatologist to get a skin check because my mom bugs me. And that's it. You know, that's it. That's me. I'm 26-year-old marathon runner. I'm all good. Other people, not so much. So it's just going to completely depend on you. When you first are interviewing for a job and they're like, you get an offer. Are you having those conversations with HR? Are you like, can I see the health care plans? Me personally? Man, that was an awesome idea.

Okay. I'm trying to think about, again, like, if you're getting the benefits and it's like, okay, you get a 401K maybe, or you get this. And it's like 85% health care coverage premium, which I think what we offer at her first 100K, like the company is going to cover 85% of that. Like, what does that mean for somebody in like very basic layman terms? Basically, I mean, I looked this up this morning. The last time this got documented was, you know, coming up on a year ago, employer health insurance for a single person, it's like, like $9,000. For family, it's like $25,000. So it's like 85% of that, right? That's already, that's money out of your pocket. But it's also like, yeah, what does it look like? I mean, I'd say you want to, yeah, get as much information as you can as soon as you can.

If you know somebody, I mean, and again, it depends on you. If this and you'll know it, right? Like, you know, if you are a person who has essentially a chronic health condition where you need access to specialists, you need access to certain medicine, you don't need me to tell you this. You know this. You have chosen your, you may have chosen your career based on the idea of like,

I got to be in a job that's going to make it possible for me to live my life. But like, so I think, yeah, it's all, it's, it's individual. But, but, you know, as I've learned, like, and so I think then you may be thinking about these benefits more in the question of like, hit by a bus or get pregnant or, you know, have a baby, like have a big unexpected expense like what's the what's the kind of downside risk of any given plan because you know if you're rather than like what's it going to do for me i mean i think i can give the advice that like you want your employer to cover as much as possible like that is a really really

great benefit so if you are looking one do they offer health insurance at all a lot of companies don't uh i think if you're doing full-time work that should be a requirement that you have that your company offers you health insurance. I think the second thing is figuring out when are the, when is that health insurance going to kick in? Because a lot of places say, well, you can get health insurance, but after you've worked here for three months or six months or even a year, you can't get health insurance from us. They can make you a way to hear. It's not as much anymore, but I have seen it. And I've gotten questions about it. It's less, I think it's less common now because people know it's insane. But they're doing that. So, you know, if the job doesn't work out,

you know, we have, they haven't paid health insurance for you for a period of time. And then I think the last thing, again, speaking as an employer, it's how much are we going to cover versus how much we expect you to cover? A more candidate or employee friendly job is going to have, the, the company is going to cover more of that premium. So again, for her first hundred K, I think we're at 85%. We cover 85%. That's a pretty liberal, generous policy. that's hopefully what you're looking for.

And if you're not at 85 or above, just be aware of that. It's not like, I've taken jobs that we're not covering that much, but it's just something to know. I mean, I think of this a little differently, although I totally agree with what you're saying. I think of it as like, well, this is all money. This is all cash. And like, what's the, like, what's the premium on that health benefit? I mean, one of the, the thing that I think about with this is like, even if you have the most generous benefit in the world, and your employer is paying that $25,000 to cover your family,

that's money your employer could be paying you. I mean, that's just cash on their budget line for you. And in a world where we didn't have this kind of horrible inflation in healthcare costs, because the cost of everything goes up, the price of everything goes up every year. And insurance premiums go up to reflect that. And if we weren't living in this world that was so enraging, so outrageously expensive and continue to get more expensive. We wouldn't have to think about this.

Again, there was a story just last week about, like, this is, this is, we surveyed employers and, you know, we think they're expecting this to be the rate of increase in their premiums, and like 50% or 51% are saying, like, you know, we're going to, our employees are going to have to take on some of that. But it's all just dollars. It's all just dollars. And it's all going to, even, you know, even those of us who are, you know, in jobs where it feels like our employer takes care of us, like we don't, like, we don't have to

worry about this big system. It's money out of our pockets. If our employer is paying $25,000 for that, like, what would you do with $25,000? Because that number was below $20,000, not that long ago, and it was below $15,000, not that longer. What would you do with that extra $10,000? It's an interesting frame of reference, because for me, I'm like, both as a now employer, but also as an employee, I'm like, I am okay getting a benefit as part of my total compensation package where I don't have to worry about researching that benefit and the coverage and wondering if, like, I think one of the biggest reasons it took me so long to be my own boss and to be an entrepreneur full time is because I had both my parents in one ear and the system and the other

going like, you need health insurance, you need, like that was a huge barrier. to me making the right financial decision, which was quit my job, make as much money as possible, do impact-driven work. But the health insurance thing was the reason, one of, like, only like two other reasons that I was like, I can't, I don't think I can do this. Like it was just, what were the other reasons? What were the other reasons? Oh, God. I mean, what if I fail? Right. It's like, it's like more the psychological shit. But I think that that's a larger conversation about how we largely have tied in this country health insurance to employment, right? It's like those two are pretty inextricably linked. ObamaCare's helped a ton with that, right? But again, we have people

in office now who want to get rid of that so badly and who are trying, it seems like, every day to get rid of it. Most other countries do not operate this way. It is not, you make money, you have a you have employment you get health insurance so I think that that is one of many problems we're talking about here where it's like it's not a basic human right it must be earned it must be and it's got to come with your job and it creates problems right for employers I mean you're on the employer side now right oh it's very complicated it's yeah very complicated and I my COO is largely in charge of it like I don't even touch it as much and It's so complicated and it's very expensive for us to offer, but we offer it because it's the right thing to do.

Yeah. And you're investing, right, like a lot of your staff time, a lot of your COO's time. I imagine she's not, I hope she's not badly paid, right? You're investing a lot of time and labor that you're paying for in learning in, like, I'm like, your parents and the world were telling you like, well, you need health insurance. I'm going to say, like, they maybe weren't wrong because you needed to have a kind of head of steam under you before you were ready to do what you're doing now. which is like you're now responsible for essentially sitting down at that table at the World Series of Poker and like negotiating with United Health Group and Cigna and Etna and trying to figure out which of them is the least worst deal for you and the people you care and work with. Oh, I know. So I have so many more practical questions for you and maybe we can do kind of a rapid fire. Let's make 2026 the year you get your financial shit together. Okay.

So if you've ever thought, it's too late for me to figure this out, or my debt feels out of control, or just thinking about my money gives me major anxiety. And I know you've had one of those thoughts because you're listening to the show. You are not alone. That feeling of overwhelm. It is not your fault. It is baked in to a broken system that is meant to keep you stuck, playing small, and spinning your wheels.

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and take this exclusive training. See you there. So, Little Rapid Fire, are there red flags or common billing errors patients should double check for? Ooh, double check everything. Get from any medical encounter, double check everything. I mean, anything that looks high to you, like double check it. Even if it doesn't look that high, you're like, no, I guess. Like, double check it. Like, ask them, you can always ask for what's an itemized bill.

So that you can call it the super bill that has codes on it. And the first thing you do is just reality. check it like, hey, I didn't get an MRI. What are you talking about? I was there. That didn't happen. Right. That happens a lot. Some, the estimates, there's no real number, but people who do this, you know, estimate, you know, like half or more of medical bills have errors on them this year. And similarly, like, do they run it through my insurance? Like, my colleague, Claire, was like working with her roommate who broke her arm and got settled with $14,000 in medical bills. And the biggest one, 10,000 bucks. She, like, just did the due diligence. And turned out.

like, oh, yeah, I don't have an insurance statement for that one. And she called the building department. They're like, oh, yeah, we never build your insurance. We'll do that now. Great. I do feel like that one's super common of, yeah, we didn't bill your insurance or, you know, something happened. And then the other one, which I was talking about at the top, with, like, it was a routine

procedure or a routine, like, annual checkup and they didn't cover it. I've also heard that if you ask questions, like, let's say I'm going to my GP for a general checkup and I start asking very specialized questions, they can charge you differently. So just be aware of that. Okay. True, true story. Don't let it stop from asking the questions you need to ask. But yeah, true story. So many listeners are feeling powerless when they get that massive medical bill. What steps can someone take to, like, challenge that bill or think about like paying it in a way that's more sustainable for them? Absolutely. So two things. We just talked about one of them, reality check it. Did this happen? Did they charge your insurance? That happens all the

time. Second, if the biller is a hospital, see if you might be eligible for charity care, also called financial assistance, but it's important to look for it as charity care. Nonprofit hospitals in United States are legally required to offer charity care, which is to say, to say, like, we'll cut your bill or forgive it entirely if you hit a certain income threshold, if your incomes below a certain threshold. A very common threshold is like 300% of the federal poverty line, which is like, it turns out something like 60% of Americans have incomes below that amount, which say most of us. And depending on where you live, like, you know, I talked to a listener in New York City where the hospital she went to, the threshold was 600% of the federal poverty line, which makes sense.

New York is a crazily expensive city. So those policies are generally public. You can look it up. But you can also go to a website called Dollar 4. And they're a fantastic. They've educated me about charity care. And they have built into their website. They've collected the charity care policies of like every hospital in the country.

And by the way, for-profit hospitals are not required to offer charity care, but most of them do. Maybe even all of them do. and you can plug in to their website. This is where I live. This is the institution where I was seen. This is my income. This is how many people live in my household. And hit a button and it'll be like,

we think you qualify for charity care at this institution. Here's a link to how you apply. We can help you. They did an estimate a year or two ago just trying to add up, like how much charity care hospitals could give away that they don't. but that there are policies say, like, you know, people are eligible for. And this is essentially using their own calculations, using their own, because they're required to report to the federal government like, hey, how much, how much, how many bills

would be right off last year, and how much of that money could have been forgiven through charity care? I'm scared. And the answer, conservatively, based on hospital's own estimates, was $14 billion a year. Fuck. So see if you apply for charity care. See if you qualify for charity care. because so many of us do.

So many of us do. And it is, and as I've learned from Jared Walker and the folks at Dollar 4, like, if you're like on the edge or like you missed a deadline or something else, like, don't write yourself off. Like make the call, find out, write a letter, make your case, tell your story. People don't. And similarly, if your insurance is denying something that you need, appeal. Because most people do not.

And a surprising number, although, right, I mean, appealing an insurance now can be, like, the worst and their reflexes to say no and you have to work your weapon, it's a giant job. A good number of people win those appeals. So, like, basically, don't take no for an answer. Don't take, like, this is it for you for an answer. I talked with a guy. We were looking at how to pay less for prescription drugs. And I had one guy who was like, yeah, you want to take, when your insurance company says, we're not covering this, or we need you to do what's called step therapy to test up these other drugs you've already tried that don't work for you or whatever. Like, think of all those as suggestions rather than a straight to know, like, we think of it as like, that's a, that's a opening offer.

And I really like that way of looking at it. Yeah. Yeah, I'll echo that call about everything. And even if you don't qualify for, remind me the name of it. Charity care. Thank you. Even if you don't qualify for that, even just saying, I'm going through a financially difficult time, is there anything you can do for me? They have so many things they can do for you. The other tip I have is that if you do have financial flexibility to pay a bill, like I remember getting my wisdom teeth out. And I did not do my research and did not realize that the dentist I chose was out of pocket or out of network. And so it was $1,400. And I was like 24, and that was so much fucking money. So what you can do is you can say, hey, I can pay this entire bill in full right now, but you're going to discount it for me because they don't know if you might default on that

or might only make four out of eight payments, right? So they would rather take, you know, burdened hand. So if you can say, yep, I can pay $1,000 right now. 100% they will often take that okay so you mentioned saving money on prescriptions especially if insurance doesn't cover them well what are some ways we can save oh boy uh we just so we we asked our listeners this year like what like we've talked to experts we know some things tell us what you know and what i came away with was a kind of like a like a playbook almost at like what you can do like you show up at the pharmacy like that's going to be 500 bucks and you're like all right what are some moves

that I got here. And there's the easy ones, the quick ones anyway, and the longer term dig in for a struggle. The easy ones go like this, like, you're at the farm's going to be five hundred bucks. Like, oh, what if we, what if, what if I paid cash? Or is there a coupon from the manufacturer? And then you're like, can you hang on a second? And you pull up your phone and you pull up good RX and there's a couple of competitor sites. And you're like, can I just get this for less someplace else paying cash outside of my insurance? And if the answer to those is yes, then, you know, okay, cool. Great, if that's going to solve your problem that day. And, like, there's no guarantees with any of this. But, like, a lot of the times,

one of those things is going to work, right? So you can do it right there at the pharmacy counter. If not, well, now you're going to have some questions, right? One of them is, like, oh, this inhaler's $500. Is there another inhaler I could use for my condition that I could get for less? And then you're going to want to think about whether, and like, you ask the pharmacist, but if you can get somebody at your provider's office on hold on the phone, you do like, okay, is this one going to work for me? Can I do this? So then you're kind of investigate, right?

Because your insurance company may well be like, we don't like that one. We make less money when you get it. We prefer you take this one. If this one is fine for you, great. If not, now you're in this other territory. where you're going to be calling your provider and saying, okay, help me appeal this. Like you and me, we think it's medically necessary

for me to get this one. We're going to be fighting with the insurance company. Like, let's gear it up, and you can have some resources for them. And this is one of the things I learned from a listener who's a pharma sales rep. He was like, while you're doing that, ask your doctor, hey,

any chance do you have any samples of this medication? that I can use while we're having this fight. I was like, that is wild. And, you know, there are, I mean, drug reps and free samples have, like, not great reputations in many ways. Like, you know, the opioid crisis is, like, a reason was largely driven by those kind of samples and by aggressive sales tactics. But this made sense to me.

Like, a lot of, a lot of doctors offices and hospital systems don't even allow you to, don't even allow their physicians to talk to drug reps. but they could go online and be like, can somebody drop off some doses of this, some samples of this drug from my office for this patient? So that was like, that's really smart. It's smart. One listener, you know, went, kind of took the also important to know about

built a spreadsheet, you know, clocked like this is good or the price from good or X at various pharmacies near me. Like there was a couple other competitors. This is the price from them. Mark Cuban's cost. Plus, drugs is a site that will sell most generic medications for super cheap. You'll pay like a $5 processing fee. But like for some, sometimes a drug that your insurance says is going to cost you 50 bucks, you could get for like $5.

Worth checking. He put that on his spreadsheet. Some, there are Canadian pharmacies that will ship to the U.S. And we'll take orders online. There are also a lot of people operating websites that say, I'm a Canadian pharmacy and we'll ship to the U.S. You don't want to go to any of those. So there's a website called Pharmacy Checker that actually presents you like only actual pharmacies in Canada and what prices they charge for your meds. So those are all kind of routes to take.

We took that listener's spreadsheet and adapted it and kind of like amped it up a little bit. And you can download it from our site and adapt it to your needs to check. about like Mark Cuban and Canada and Good RX and several of their competitors. It's a real, I mean, you know, it's a real homework assignment. And not everybody's like, oh, sure, a spreadsheet. I use those every day. Like, up until a certain point in my life, I was one of the people who's like, that sounds scary. But like, ours is not so bad. And it's probably a good, if you're, if you're, if you're trying to build wealth in your life, it's not a bad skill to have. Yeah, well, link it in the description. That's great.

Thank you. We've partnered with GerdotRX before and they're, yeah, it's kind of incredible how much you can save on just the things you need. Just checking to see if you can get, yeah, a different pharmacy or a different, you know, the not name brand medication, but the exact same thing. Okay, my last question for you, how can people advocate for themselves in the doctor's office, both for the right care, but also for clarity on costs? And what sort of question should we be asking before we agree to anything? The, this test, this procedure, this prescription, like, how do we advocate for ourselves there? Yeah. This is big.

And it goes, it's a little bit beyond my pay rate. I can tell, but I do know a couple things I can say, right? One is, you know, come prepared. Like, have your list. These are my questions. Write them out in advance. Talk to them, talk about them with a friend or a, left one so that you really have your list and bring them in writing. And when you see the doctor,

you know, the first thing you say is like, hey, doc, you and me are a team. I want to make sure we do the best job we can. I got all these questions for you. So kind of just like let the, which is, which, you know, hopefully your provider will appreciate. Right. I mean, you're coming in. I mean, there's all kinds of people in this world and some of them are doctors. And so you just don't know what you're going to get. But like, you know, you want someone who's going to answer your questions. And, you know, make sure you get your questions answered. And, you know, about things that they recommend, like, I think that's really complicated, right? Like, a doctor recommends a procedure, like, I think a reasonable thing to say is, depending on how serious the procedure is, how big a deal, it's like, hey, thanks, you know, tell me about information.

Tell me about what's the latest literature on this. And, like, give me a minute. I may go seek out another opinion. This sounds like a significant decision. questions about anything they want to do for you. I mean, you can ask them if they were like, I'm going to do this procedure. There's all kinds of questions. Like, how many times have you done it?

Right? If you're concerned about, like, are they the right person to do this for you? That could also lead to a question about, well, if they do this all the time, is it like, you know, a business model to kind of churn people through that procedure? Ask good questions. Don't commit to any, like anything else, you know, don't get sold anything in the first conversation. And yeah, you can always get a second opinion, especially if it's something big, something more serious, you should get a second and maybe even a third opinion.

Okay, I lied. Last question for you. If someone is uninsured or underinsured, what options do they realistically have for accessing care without going broke? Yeah. I mean, one thing about charity care programs at hospital, I'll do this again, is that you can apply to be. part of that program before you go get seen. That's great. In many cases, right? So then you become a kind of certified patient there who's all, then you're not getting bills for cajillions of dollars and calling somebody to ask, how do we knock this down? You know what you're getting into up front and they know who you are.

So that, I think, is the best situation. There are places, there are community clinics like some called federally qualified health centers, some of which, some of which are terrific. And they offer care on a sliding scale basis. They see everybody with and without insurance. And their commitment is that care is affordable to people. So if there's one near you, there are search engines where you can find that out, like, see what's available. So I think those are, those are, those are, those are, those are, those be my top two, like the fastest things. Like, is there a hospital where you call a hospital system where you qualify for their charity care program? Because they probably also,

you know, run a lot of doctor's offices. You can probably do most of your care in that system. Yeah. Dan, thank you for all of this. Plug away. Where can people listen to the show? Give us your resources. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. The show is an arm and a leg. You can listen to wherever you get podcasts. You can find our website. Our website is arm and a leg show.com. And there, you can also find in some of our newsletter, which is called First Aid Kit, which is our best tips for, you know, surviving the health system financially. Basically, after a few years, people were like, hey, that's really good advice.

I don't have a pencil with me while I'm driving to work or doing the dishes. Could you write that down someplace? So this is our attempt to do that. All those archives are on our website. And we've recently, because we were able to remake our website, started creating what we call starter packs that answer specific questions like, help. I got a giant medical bill. What now? or help, insurance denied my claim.

And these are, we've curated collections of our reporting that are our best answers to those questions. So that's our stuff. We're arm and a leg show.com. Our handle is arm and a leg show on most social media platforms. So you can find us there. But you have a podcast and the newsletter,

our main thing. Everything's free. We don't charge anybody for anything because this is information everybody needs. We do, and we are powered by listener donations. So, you know, our goal is to do the most good for the most people. And what we found is, like, a certain percentage of people will be like, I'm really glad you're doing this.

Yes, I will support it. Our business model and our mission are they exactly the same, right? We reach more people. We help more people. More people are there to say, like, yeah, I want to help that with that. So, yeah. And I know people are going to have more questions because, again, this is such a personalized experience.

I know that there's going to be people out here who are like, why didn't you talk about this? Or how did you get here? And it's like, there's a literally entire show and platform for this because it is so complicated. We can't cover it all in an episode. So I think those starter packs are going to be really helpful for people. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much to Dan for joining us. You can check out his podcast, an arm, and a leg, wherever you get your podcast, especially if you need more information. It's hard to take the entire American health care system and just digest it do one episode, especially when there's so many different health care costs and different

health care needs. So his podcast is a great resource for you, especially as we navigate all of the upcoming changes. We've also linked some of the resources that Dan mentioned below. And you can go to her first hundredk.com slash ffpod to get even more of our resources. We have free guides. We have free workshops. We have debt payoff challenges. We also have our show notes that have even more resources and guides. So again, her first hundredk.com slash ffpod. Thank you so much for joining as financial feminists. We appreciate you being here. We appreciate your support of feminist media, and we'll see you back here soon. Bye. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. For more information

about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit Financial Feministpodcast.com. If you're confused about your personal finances and you're wondering where to start, go to Her First00K.com slash quiz for a free personalized money plan. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant, research by Sarah Shortino, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcast, marketing and operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Lefew.

Special thanks to our team at her first 100K, Caitlin Sprinkel, Mashabak McKeever, Sasha Bonar, Ray Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclose, Megan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire her first 100K community for supporting

our show.