What do the KGB and the former CEO of Cincinnati Children's Hospital have in common?

At different times, they’ve each looked to a guy named Eugene Litvak for help. He only said yes to Cincinnati — but he saved that hospital more than a hundred million dollars a year.

For the last few decades, Litvak – a Soviet émigré with a PhD in math – has been on a mission: save U.S. hospitals from financial ruin, and improve the lives of doctors, nurses, and patients.

He says he has just the formula to do it, lots of prominent experts agree, and he’s documented impressive results so far: Financial savings, fewer hospital-related deaths, lower staff turnover, and shorter wait times.

But Litvak and his allies are still struggling to convince more hospital CEOs to try his method.

We talk with Litvak about his wild life story and how he found the fix that he says could revolutionize American hospitals. And we speak with experts to determine why more hospitals don’t try it.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

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With news blasting from Washington like a firehose, it feels impossible to take it all in — to stay on top of all the changes the Trump administration has been trying to make.

But for health care, one person is probably closer to anyone than to understanding the full picture: KFF Heath News Chief Washington Correspondent Julie Rover.

In this episode, Julie helps us see that picture, by telling us two stories:

The first concerns a teeny part of the health care system — an obscure federal agency, one of many that the Trump administration has taken a chainsaw to.

The other is anything but obscure: Possible cuts to Medicaid —which Julie thinks Republicans will actually find very difficult to make.

Plus, reporting from Julie’s KFF Health News colleague Arthur Allen. And a cameo from one of Julie’s beloved corgis.

Check out Julie’s weekly health policy news podcast: What the Health?

Read more from Arthur Allen on cuts to AHRQ in KFF Health News:

What’s Lost: Trump Whacks Tiny Agency That Works To Make the Nation’s Health Care Safer

Trump HHS Eliminates Office That Sets Poverty Levels Tied to Benefits for at Least 80 Million People

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.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People who work in real-life emergency rooms have raved about how accurately the new drama The Pitt (Max) captures the dynamics and the medical details of their workplaces.

Here at An Arm and a Leg, we’ve been nerding out about how the show depicts the financial forces that shape the ER’s day-to-day problems like crowding, eternal wait times, and scary bills.

For this episode, we got Dr. Alex Janke, an emergency medicine doctor and health policy researcher to nerd out with us.

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.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.