Hey there, I have to start with a big thank you to everybody who supports this show.

It's January, we wrapped up our big funders and campaign at New Year's and more than 600

of you came through for us.

We hit all our targets, including our stretch goal, it is huge.

So I will have a lot of people to thank at the end of this episode and I want to think

about how to celebrate.

Thanks to you, this year is off to an amazing start.

And for this first episode of 2023, I'm going back to a story we first put out more than

three years ago in 2019, because this story changed my whole conception of what this

show can aim to do.

And when I meet people today and tell them about an arm and a leg for the first time, this

is the story I tell them about.

Because this is a story about legal rights I never suspected we had and how we can sometimes

use them to fight back.

I learned a lot of other stuff over reporting this story about surprise bills and the role

of private equity.

It was early days for the show and we're leaving out those parts this time.

We've gone deeper on them in other episodes and some of the underlying facts have changed.

In fact, some things have gone out of date in good ways, thanks to the Federal No Surprises

Act, which took effect last year.

But the part about fighting back, standing up for our legal rights, that holds up.

It's ready for some follow-up.

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