Hey, it's Dan, super quick. If you appreciate what we're doing here on an arm and a leg,

I want to ask you to help us out. The biggest source of funding for this show is you.

And right now, any donation you make is going to be matched dollar for dollar thanks to news match from the Institute for Nonprofit news like you give us 50 bucks. They make it a hundred just like that.

You can do that right now at arm and a leg show dot com slash support thanks okay

here's a show hey there so this is part two of a two-part story and if you miss

part one or just want a refresher. Here's three quick

things. First, some hospitals definitely not all sue a lot of patients over unpaid bills, hundreds even thousands every year. Second,

there's very little money in it for these hospitals.

When reporters and researchers add up the total amounts they're suing for,

it looks tiny compared to say their annual surplus or what they pay executives. Tiny. Third, there's

data showing a lot of the people being sued are pretty hard up already,

that a lot of them would qualify for charity care under the hospital's own financial assistance policies. In fact, as we reported last time, a guy

named Nick McLaughlin who spent a decade working for a medical bill collections

agency now runs a business telling hospitals

they'd be better off financially writing these bills off through charity care

or financial assistance programs.

And I should point out, Nick is not a do-good crusader.

He has started a business to help hospitals do this.

And he has staked his family's financial future on it.

Had a good but challenging conversation with my wife

and she said, hey, so it's the reason we're not doing this full time

because we're scared the money's not kind of coming.

...