For the first time, our senior producer, Emily, has to sign up for Obamacare. And it turns out, it’s one heck of a year to do that.

A recent headline from KFF Health News reads: “Insurers and customers brace for double whammy to Obamacare premiums.”

We break down what those “whammies” might mean in dollars and cents for Emily and the millions of others signing up for Obamacare in 2026.

Plus, we cover what’s happening with ACA navigators – the people charged with helping you sign up for Obamacare, and what to expect in November when open enrollment kicks off.

Learn more about what’s coming in 2026 in our First Aid Kit newsletter.

Check out KFF’s Obamacare premium calculator.

Learn whether your state funds its own navigator program.

Read a transcript of this episode.

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OK, onwards…

Sharing a favorite from our archive – with lessons that are as relevant as ever.

Laurie Todd calls herself The Insurance Warrior. She fights health insurance for a living. Her speciality: writing appeals when insurance companies deny high-stakes, high-dollar treatments.

Her first victory was fighting to get coverage for her own life-saving cancer surgery – which we chronicled in an episode tracing her origin story.

Since then, she says she’s notched hundreds of other victories, and outlined her strategies in two books: Fight Your Health Insurer and Win and APPROVED: Win Your Insurance Appeal in 5 Days.

In this episode, we go deep on one of Laurie’s early, super-instructive cases, that taught Laurie one of the weirder truths about health insurance in America: fighting your health insurance often means fighting… your employer.

And in this case, that employer was a $61 billion company.

Want more about winning insurance appeals? Here’s our starter pack.

Here is a transcript of this episode.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When a New York couple purchased a health insurance plan from a telemarketer, everything sounded legit. Meds, doctors, tests? All covered.

But it didn't take long for them to realize they'd been “hustled” – ending up with bills for thousands of dollars, and leaving them no choice but to skip important medical care.

In their series “Health Care Hustlers,” Bloomberg reporters Zach Mider and Zeke Faux uncover the exact nature of the scheme – how this couple, as well as thousands of others, signed up for health plans by unknowingly agreeing to work “fake jobs.”

Zach and Zeke join us to unpack the many surprising layers to this business— involving a subculture of unscrupulous telemarketers, a TV-sitcom-writer-turned-investor who masterminded the idea, and the legal gray area that allows these plans to proliferate.

Reminder: If you need to sign up for health insurance, the place to go is healthcare.gov. (As we’ve warned before: Don’t even Google it.)

No matter what, shopping for insurance requires a ton of homework. We’ve got a guide for you in this Starter Pack.

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.