Why picking the right insurance is so hard (bonus/encore)

An Arm and a Leg

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

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2021

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How hard is it to pick the best health insurance? ECONOMISTS find it hard. Including one who has studied the question, "How hard can it be to pick a decent insurance plan?"

Lots of people are suddenly eligible to pick possibly-cheaper health insurance thanks to the American Rescue Plan—the big stimulus bill Congress passed in March—so we thought it could be useful to bring this 2018 story back.

Also useful: This essay from health-care reporter Zachary Tracer about how he picked his health insurance, with directions for you (that start with pouring yourself a drink)

There are more how-tos, and health insurance basics, on our web page from the original version of this story.

And here's a VERY useful tool, described in the episode—for if you live in DC, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, or Vermont

As always, we'd love you to share a story or support this show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there, we are bringing back an episode from our first season about why it is so hard to
0:05.0	pick health insurance for two reasons. One, under the American Rescue Plan, that is the big
0:10.1	economic stimulus plan Congress passed in March 2021. Lots of people right now have the option
0:15.9	to sign up for cheaper insurance. And two, I'm on another podcast this week talking about how hard
0:21.7	it is to learn about those deals and to sign up for them and to figure out whether or not you even
0:26.1	want to. That podcast is the indicator from Planet Money, which is super fun and all of the
0:31.2	10 minutes long. And if you're joining us for the first time because you heard me there,
0:35.0	welcome aboard. Two things to know. One, during our first season when this episode first aired,
0:41.2	my family was actually shopping for health insurance, so you'll hear a reference to that.
0:45.2	And two, this was 2018, pre-pandemic, which means, among other things, that Hamilton was still
0:51.6	running on Broadway and tickets were still hard to get. The rest for better or worse is pretty much
0:57.1	up to date. Hey there, if you heard our first episode, you know, I'm trying to figure out what
1:05.6	health insurance my family can get for next year. And we're lucky. One way or another, we're going
1:10.8	to be able to get some kind of health insurance plan. But according to this study I just read,
1:17.2	we're probably going to pick the wrong one. Picking the right one is so hard that the economist
1:24.3	who did the study, I read, he says, he's in the same boat. His son is turning 26 this year
1:30.9	and can't stay on the family plan. Dad, the economist will pick the new one. And despite doing
1:37.7	research on this, I'm truly dreading having to make this decision. I have no confidence that
1:45.3	I'm going to end up making the right decision. That gloomy outlook comes from George Lowenstein.
1:50.9	He's a professor at Carnegie Mellon. And here is the story of how he and a couple of colleagues
1:56.2	figured out exactly how screwed we are. Oh, wait, first. I did find a glimmer of hope at the end,
2:02.5	so stay with me. This is an arm in a leg, a show about the cost of health care. I'm Dan Weissman.
	...

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