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Have you ever gone to pick up a prescription and found it cost much more than you were expecting

or your insurance suddenly decided to stop paying for your medicine?

The former has happened, Sean, and unfortunately I had to pay for it because I still needed

the prescription. So what's a girl to do?

Yeah, what a bind.

Well, I know a lot of folks have found themselves in the same exact situation.

So this episode will have some tips for how people can make prescriptions a little more manageable.

Welcome to Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles.

And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. This episode, we answer listeners' question about how to manage health care expenses if health care tax credits expire later this year, which is expected to make affordable care act plans 75% more expensive on average.

But first, we're going to dive deep into another aspect of health care, prescription drugs.

I don't know about you, Elizabeth, but paying for prescriptions can sometimes feel like a weird hybrid game of hide-and-seek and whack-a-mole.

Like, it's hard to find the best price for your prescription, and then once you have it settled, your insurance suddenly decides to change the pricing or drop covers for the drug entirely. This sounds like a nightmare. I mean, luckily, I don't have prescription drugs often, but the few times I have, I've been shocked at the cost of them. Now, as a girl coming from London where we had universal

health care, I still marvel at how much I pay out of pocket for prescriptions and how much

work can go into finding a cost-effective option. Well, this episode, we're joined by Dan Weissman,

host of the NPR podcast, an arm and a leg, which helps listeners navigate the truly dysfunctional

and absolutely maddening

world of health care in the United States. Dan's going to help us figure out how to make these

often vital prescriptions a little more affordable. Dan, welcome to smart money. Thanks for having me.

So you did a really helpful two-part series just about how people can navigate the cost of

prescription drugs. And even though you said folks don't need to take note because you have a really helpful

newsletter, I was taking notes while listening to your podcast.

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