Several listeners sent us an article with the headline Make your health insurance cry, about a new AI tool to fight health insurance. We had to learn more.

Meet Holden Karau: a Bay Area software engineer who says she’s “trying to make health insurance suck a little bit less.”

So she’s created an AI tool to appeal insurance denials.

Her project, Fight Health Insurance, is a labor of love (she’s not earning money from it) and fueled by hatred (of insurance companies).

It draws on her tech expertise and on her years of experience fighting health insurance: for gender-affirming care, for rehab after getting hit by a car, and even for her dog, Professor Timbit.

We talked with Holden about what it took to build the tool, how it works, and what she hopes comes next.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

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

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Something different: We talk with journalist Cara Anthony about topics that don’t always come up in conversations about the cost of health care.

For the last four years, she’s been reporting on the public health effects of racism, violence, and intergenerational trauma in a small Missouri town.. The result: A new documentary and podcast series called Silence in Sikeston.

She sat down with us to talk about the value of breaking silences and the possibility for healing.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

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

Of course we’d love for you to support this show.

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

We're sharing an episode of “To See Each Other,” about a question that’s SUPER-relevant to this show: How do we pay for long-term care, like nursing homes?

To See Each Other aims to complicate the narrative about small-town Americans. In this new season, host George Goehl heads to Lincoln County, Wisconsin — population, 28,000-and-some. And home to a publicly-run nursing home with a 5-star quality rating from the feds.

A conservative county board plans to sell the home to a private operator, but senior citizens aren’t having it. They show up to board meetings, march in the Labor Day parade, and fight with… their last breath.

George goes deep into questions of aging in America, public versus private versions of long-term care, and the nuts and bolts of organizing. The show aims to put you in a fighting mood, and to think differently about aging.

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