First Aid Kit Archive • An Arm And a Leg

First Aid Kit

Our newsletter sums up and shares the practical lessons we’ve learned about surviving the health care system, financially.

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A First Aid Kit reader organized a medical-debt clinic

And we got to go. Here's what we learned.

An Arm and a Leg’s Summer Reading List

Some of our favorite books about health care in America.

Avoiding Ripoffs

Medical-bill resources everyone should know about

Sourced from you, our readers!

More encouragement, via John Green

What I took away from his best-selling new book.

Yes, you can negotiate with bill collectors

Learn the right questions to ask and our best tips for settling up.

Two things to try before paying off medical debt

Don’t pay without checking these first.

Help us build a one-stop shop resource

Plus an exciting DIY project to help your neighbors.

How to stare down — and maybe scare off — a bill collector

What the “Fair Debt Collection Practices Act” can do for you, pt. 1.

We wiped out almost $10K of my roommate’s medical bills

How we tackled nearly $10k out of $14.5k in medical bills.

How to (maybe) steer clear of facility fees

Our two best strategies for avoiding these increasingly common charges.

We’ve still got some protections against medical debt collectors

And they’re still worth knowing about, you know??

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For topic-specific deep dives and recommended reading, check out our Starter Packs or use the search bar below to explore our site.

More of our reporting

Starter Packs

Jumping off points: Our best episodes and our best answers to some big questions.

Explore our Starter Packs →

How do I shop for health insurance?

Picking a health insurance plan can be super confusing. Here's our best advice.

Help! I’m stuck with a gigantic medical bill.

Don't freak out. We've laid out tips to help you manage your medical bills.

The prescription drug playbook

The high cost of prescription meds in the US is a crisis: one in four adults say they’ve skipped taking a prescription in the past year because of cost.

Why are my meds so expensive?

Getting your meds shouldn’t feel like mission impossible. Here’s a hand-picked mix of our most practical tips, background stories, and real listener experiences—so you can save money, understand the system, and know you’re not alone.

Help! Insurance denied my claim.

Insurance denies lots of claims, and people give up. But the majority of people who appeal win. Here's the best of what we've published so far to help you.

See All Our Starter Packs

If you don't know where to start or are just getting to know us, we recommend you start here.

Podcast Episodes

Our show about why health care costs so freaking much, and what we can (maybe) do about it.

Explore the podcast →

August 28, 2025

‘The Insurance Warrior’ battles a $61 billion company (from 2021)

Laurie Todd calls herself "The Insurance Warrior." Here's the story of one of her first big battles.

A wild health insurance hustle

They thought they were buying insurance. Instead, they got fake “jobs.”

The great American drug shortage isn’t an accident, it’s artificial (from Organized Money)

What's up with drug shortages? From the podcast Organized Money.

Robots sing: The Prescription Drug Playbook Song

You just gotta hear this.

The Prescription Drug Playbook, Part Two

We bring in experts to share their tricks for getting life-saving meds at an affordable cost.

See the Episode Archive

One of the most enraging, terrifying, depressing parts of American life made entertaining, empowering, and useful.