NYT’s Ron Lieber: ‘These people are not going to win.'

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Documentary, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thirty-six hours before his wife was scheduled for a major surgery, New York Times personal finance columnist Ron Lieber got a letter in the mail that sent him reeling.

Insurance was denying prior authorization for the surgery. The only way forward would be to appeal the decision. But it was Saturday night, and the surgery was Monday morning. There wouldn’t be any time. Should they even go to the hospital?

They decided to bet on being able to reverse the denial later on, but the last minute coverage questions left Ron’s wife, New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, going into surgery that Monday with a brand new sense of stress and anxiety.

And along with worrying how his wife's surgery would go (spoiler: it was successful), and whether they’d end up on the hook for a bajillion dollars, it left Ron to wonder why no one had given them a heads-up earlier.

He set out to find answers — and whether there might be a way to prevent these last-minute denials from sneaking up on other people.

Ron turned to his "Your Money" newsletter subscribers for ideas, and eventually published a draft letter in his New York Times column that doctors and other health care providers could give their patients to better prepare them for insurance curveballs.

Check out the column here – and consider passing it along to any health care workers whose patients you think might benefit.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Soundside brings you beyond the headlines with news and conversation rooted in the Pacific Northwest.
0:07.5	I'm Libby Dankman. Every week I sit down with local journalists for SoundSide's front page,
0:12.6	where we give you a shortcut to understanding the latest news and cultural moments and how they affect us here in the Puget Sound region.
0:19.8	It's all here on Sound Side, on the radio or streaming Monday through Thursday at noon and 8 p.m.
0:25.1	on KUOW, on the KUOW app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:30.2	Hey there, let's meet somebody.
0:32.0	I'm Ron Lieber.
0:33.2	I write the Your Money column for the New York Times.
0:35.8	I write all sorts of books, and I live in Brooklyn, New York.
0:40.2	Ron's specialty is beating the system, how not to pay more than you really need to.
0:45.1	His most recent book, about paying for college, we've basically worn out our copy around my house.
0:50.8	Now, it's possible Ron's not the most prominent journalist in his household. A major
0:55.8	Hollywood movie a few years ago had Zoe Kazan starring as Ron's wife, Jody Cantor.
1:01.5	We're from the New York Times. I believe he used to work for Harvey Weinstein.
1:08.3	Jody was one of the reporters who exposed the movie producer Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual assault
1:13.6	and helped kickstart the Me Too movement. I mean, that is tough to beat.
1:19.0	In 2024, Jody was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she got scheduled for surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering on a Monday morning in December.
1:27.2	And she was doing all the things you're supposed to do to get ready for surgery.
1:30.6	She did the meditation for a week and, you know, she wound down everything at work.
1:35.0	She went away for a couple days with friends.
1:37.3	So on Saturday, two days before surgery, Jody is on that trip with friends.
1:42.7	Ron spends the day with their nine-year-old, just the two of them.
	...

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