How to pick health insurance — in the worst year ever

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Health, Health & Fitness, Documentary

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hey, first! If you value what we do, this is the best-ever time to support our work: This month, every donation gets matched two-for-one.

We have SO much work ahead in 2026. Donate here — and get your money matched two-for-one.

It’s probably fair to say: this is the worst year ever for picking health insurance. Premiums are skyrocketing – whether you get insurance through work or from the Obamacare marketplace.

And with enhanced subsidies almost definitely expiring, millions of people with Obamacare plans are grappling with drastic changes to their household budgets.

We’re our own case study: You’ll hear us sorting through our own options. None of them are pretty, but because we know how to read the fine print, we figured out: Some are way, way less awful than others.

And to help you do the same: We’ve boiled down our fine-print-reading expertise in this starter pack on how to pick insurance.

Also in this episode: we talk with a listener who wonders: is paying for health insurance even worth it at this point? (Her ultimate answer: Yes, but argh.)

Read Julie Appleby’s reporting for KFF Health News about what could happen if Congress changes course and extends the subsidies.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

Send your stories and questions! Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

And, again… we’d love for you to support this show.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, before we start, real quick, this show exists because listeners like you support it.
0:05.9	Our single biggest income source, your donations.
0:09.0	And now is the perfect time for you to give because thanks to NewsMatch from the Institute for Nonprofit News, anything you give this November gets matched two for one.
0:19.1	You give $100. They turn it into $300. It's amazing. You give a hundred bucks. They turn it into three hundred dollars. It's
0:22.5	amazing. You can make that happen at arm and the leg show.com slash support. Thank you so much.
0:29.0	Okay, here's the show. Hey there. As we started writing up this episode, the U.S. government was
0:34.1	starting to reopen after the longest shutdown ever.
0:38.3	Eight Democratic senators had made a deal.
0:40.4	But this deal has Democrats divided.
0:43.1	It does not include an extension for Obamacare subsidies, which is what the party was holding
0:47.8	out for.
0:48.7	And people were pissed.
0:50.6	Here's a couple examples from our social media feeds.
0:53.3	Eight Democrats caved and betrayed the American people tonight.
0:57.1	The Democrats caved. The Democrats caved. What?
1:00.2	Are you fooled?
1:01.1	I have tried to calm down so many times to record this video.
1:03.9	Those Democrats did extract one sliver of a concession, a promise from Republican Senate
1:09.3	Majority Leader John Thune to schedule a vote on
1:12.7	extending the subsidies for early December, which lots of people found unsatisfying.
1:20.1	Here's one more from our feed.
1:21.6	There's some strong language in this one.
	...

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