19 min listen
COVID tests are free, except... when they're not
FromAn Arm and a Leg
ratings:
Length:
21 minutes
Released:
Apr 29, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Anna's insurance company said it would pay 100 percent for COVID-related testing. And then they left her to pay a giant bill.She got help, thanks to a viral tweet, but... her story exposes big loopholes in consumer protections. We learn how to avoid falling in.And: The way people responded to her tweet was generous, moving, and... complicated. Uncomfortable. Weird. Even with everybody doing their absolute best. (And, we should say, with as happy an ending as any of us get these days.)Anna's story gets right to the heart of some of the really weird ways that dealing with the cost of health care — ESPECIALLY in the world of COVID-19 and the Internet and everything else — just messes with our minds, and our relationships as humans.Thanks to Carmen Heredia Rodriguez, who reported the story of Anna's bill for Kaiser Health News and kindly let me piggyback on her hard work! You can read her version at.https://khn.org/news/bill-of-the-month-covid19-tests-are-free-except-when-theyre-not/.Send your stories our way: https://armandalegshow.com/contact/And support our work: https://www.patreon.com/armandalegshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Released:
Apr 29, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Why are ER bills so horrible? Sarah Kliff spent a year finding out. (Season One, episode 7): Emergency rooms often bill you a “cover charge” just for walking in the door, and it can be thousands of dollars. That’s in addition to the huge markup on everything that happens there: seven bucks for a band-aid. Twenty dollars for a couple of pills. by An Arm and a Leg