When a New York couple purchased a health insurance plan from a telemarketer, they thought it covered everything they wanted: doctor visits, tests, and medicine. But then came the unexpected bills for thousands of dollars, forcing them to skip crucial medical care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In their series \u201cHealth Care Hustlers,\u201d Bloomberg reporters Zachary Mider and Zeke Faux revealed how this couple and thousands of other people signed up for health plans by unknowingly agreeing to work fake \u201cjobs.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mider and Faux join \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d host Dan Weissmann to peel back the surprising layers of this story, from a TV-sitcom-writer-turned-investor who masterminded the idea to the legal gray area that allows these plans to proliferate.<\/p>\n
\tDan Weissmann<\/p>\n
\t\t\t \t\t\tHost and producer of “An Arm and a Leg.” Previously, Dan was a staff reporter for Marketplace and Chicago’s WBEZ. His work also appears on All Things Considered, Marketplace, the BBC, 99 Percent Invisible, and Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting.\t\t<\/p>\n \tEmily Pisacreta \tClaire Davenport \tAdam Raymonda \tEllen Weiss \t\t\t\t\tClick to open the Transcript\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tTranscript<\/strong>: A Wild Health Insurance Hustle<\/strong>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Note: \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.<\/em><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Hey there\u2014<\/p>\n This story\u2019s outline may sound familiar, but what\u2019s underneath \u2014 what we unravel here: It\u2019s a new kind of thing. And it\u2019s weird.\u00a0<\/p>\n And it could become huge.<\/p>\n So: A couple from New York, Sarah and Joe Strohmenger started new businesses, so they needed to buy their own health insurance for the first time..<\/p>\n And Sarah says the New York state marketplace, with Obamacare plans, seemed a little risky: If they got a subsidy, and then their new businesses did well, they might have to pay that subsidy back.<\/p>\n Sarah Strohmenger: As new business owners, we had not a clue of how much we were gonna make in the year.<\/strong><\/p>\n So we were nervous about. How much we were gonna have to back pay.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Looking elsewhere seemed like a cautious thing to do. Google led them to a site that offered quotes for insurance policies \u2014 just enter your phone number. They started getting calls from telemarketers, a lot of them, and eventually they picked a plan one of them offered.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah and Joe thought they were being reasonably careful. After all, Insurance is a regulated business.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah Strohmenger: We\u2019re thinking it\u2019s monitored. We had no clue that this was kind of like a free for all.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> So as you\u2019ve probably already guessed: Pretty quickly, and very painfully, Sarah and Joe figured out that they\u2019d been hustled.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it took a pair of reporters from Bloomberg News to uncover the nature of that hustle.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: There\u2019s this kind of new breed of people offering health plans to the public that are not, um, not insurance companies at all,\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> That\u2019s one of those Bloomberg reporters, Zach Mider. As Zach and his reporting partner Zeke Faux revealed, this telemarketer had \u2014 on paper \u2014 made Joe an employee of a company he\u2019d never heard of until those reporters told him about it.<\/p>\n And according to the legal theory underneath all of this, making Joe a certain kind of employee allowed the salesman to sell Joe an insurance plan so skimpy that\u2014 as Zach and Zeke\u2019s story says \u2014 it would \u201cnormally be illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n Zach Mider says these kinds of plans currently operate in a legal grey area, with nobody regulating it \u2014 not states, not the feds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: So it really is just kind of this weird legal vacuum where, you know, market actors are free to kind of jump in and start trying to do this.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Which, Zach says, they seem to be doing, more and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: It looks like the numbers are shooting up<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> In their Bloomberg story, Zach and Zeke cite hundreds of complaints to the FTC from people who were sold these kinds of health plans.<\/p>\n They also write about meeting the guy who seems to have invented these plans \u2014 a former TV sitcom writer who they say actually believes he\u2019s solving an important problem.<\/p>\n Their reporting \u2014 in a series called \u201cHealth Care Hustlers\u201d \u2014 shows something else too:\u00a0<\/p>\n How each hustle gets created by a chain of legally-distinct operators \u2014 some of them truly operating completely independently of each other \u2014 and how, by being just one link in a chain, each operator can say:<\/p>\n \u201cI was just doing a totally legit thing. It\u2019s not my fault if some other guy is shady.\u201d<\/p>\n Basically: These stories are showing us, more clearly than I\u2019ve ever seen, what we\u2019re up against when we take a call from somebody who says they\u2019ve got a great insurance plan for us.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s a totally wild ride. Here we go.<\/p>\n This is An Arm and a Leg, a show about why health care costs so freaking much, and what we can maybe do about it. I\u2019m Dan Weissmann. I\u2019m a reporter, and I like a challenge. So the job we\u2019ve chosen here is to take on one of the most enraging, terrifying, depressing parts of American life \u2014 and bring you something entertaining, empowering and useful.<\/p>\n To start, here\u2019s how bad things got for Sarah and Joe Strohmenger.<\/p>\n As they knew: They needed good health insurance. They\u2019ve got pre-existing conditions.<\/p>\n For instance, Joe takes medicine that Sarah says costs 1500 dollars a month. And he\u2019s got a benign brain tumor and has a doctor monitoring it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah Strohmenger: That doctor was the most important doctor because it\u2019s a doctor you can\u2019t afford without health insurance.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Sarah says the monitoring includes periodic bloodwork and MRIs.<\/p>\n So she says when they were picking this plan, they asked about the doctor, about the tests, about the medicine, all their providers.<\/p>\n She says the sales rep for this plan told them, Yes. That is all covered.<\/p>\n Sarah Strohmenger: You know, it sounded great, covered everything that we needed.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Joe and Sarah paid about 87 hundred dollars upfront\u2014 a discount for a full year\u2019s coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Sarah says once they tried actually using the plan, things went south. She says their pharmacist told her Joe\u2019s medicine wasn\u2019t covered, and Joe\u2019s doctor said his visits weren\u2019t covered either.<\/p>\n And she says bills arrived that she did not expect.<\/p>\n Sarah Strohmenger: We were getting blood work bills back in the mail, for like $4,000 at a pop at a time, 3000.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> According to the Bloomberg story, Joe called the company they\u2019d bought the policy from\u2014 and reached a guy who said upgrading their plan would fix everything. They ultimately paid 20 thousand dollars for insurance that still didn\u2019t cover what they needed.<\/p>\n Sarah says she thinks they also ended up on the hook for 10 to 15 thousand dollars in medical bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah Strohmenger: Within like six months, we stopped going to doctors.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> They couldn\u2019t afford to.<\/p>\n Sarah Strohmenger: We just were like, if we end up in the hospital, we\u2019re basically screwed, you know? So Joe stopped going to all of his doctor\u2019s appointments, he stopped taking his medication, and it was bad.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Meanwhile, Sarah says they also complained to state regulators about the company that sold them this policy.<\/p>\n The regulators wrote back, saying: We\u2019ve never licensed or approved this entity. So\u2026 sorry. Sarah was like, Wait, WHAT?\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah Strohmenger: I lived in a paradox that I didn\u2019t know existed for a year. My mind was blown.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> I\u2019m telling you \u2014 it\u2019s REALLY weird. I\u2019ve seen the letter, that\u2019s what it says. And no: It\u2019s not like there\u2019s some other state office Sarah was supposed to write to. I checked.<\/p>\n Sarah says she and Joe took legal action against the marketing company, but they haven\u2019t recovered any money. She says they paid off all the bills. And she says they signed up for a plan on New York\u2019s Obamacare marketplace, which has been covering what they need.\u00a0<\/p>\n But she never understood what the heck had happened \u2014 the nature of the hustle \u2014 until she sent her story as a tip to Bloomberg News, and Zach Mider got in touch.<\/p>\n As it happened, he\u2019d been digging into exactly this kind of hustle.\u00a0<\/p>\n Which has, I have to say, just an amazing number of layers and twists. Starting here:<\/p>\n When Zach looked at Sarah and Joe\u2019s insurance cards, he noticed something that they had missed.<\/p>\n The name of a GROUP at the top \u2014 like as if this was a group plan, like you\u2019d get from your job.\u00a0<\/p>\n And that was a key to the whole arrangement. That group \u2014 Outreach Data Partners Limited Partnership \u2014 is not an insurance company.<\/p>\n As Zach puts it, their legal stance is: They haven\u2019t sold insurance to Sarah and Joe \u2014 or anybody else. That\u2019s not the relationship.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: They\u2019re claiming they have an employer-employee relationship with the people who buy health plans from them, and therefore, all of the state insurance laws don\u2019t apply.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Now, first: It\u2019s actually true that for most people who get health benefits from their employer \u2014 like two-thirds \u2014 state insurance laws don\u2019t apply. Lots of employers operate plans regulated by the federal Department of Labor.<\/p>\n Which Zach says is how Outreach Data Partners set up the plan Sarah and Joe bought.<\/p>\n All of which was news to Sarah and Joe.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: They just thought they were buying health insurance.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> And if they\u2019re workers here, what was the JOB supposed to be?<\/p>\n Zach Mider: Yeah, that\u2019s a great question. So, there is some work that is supposed to be done.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> OK, strap in: Zach says to start with, in theory, the company gives you a special browser to use on your phone.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: The idea is if you want to go do something on the internet, you use this special browser and they\u2019re collecting data about people\u2019s browsing habits which then they can turn around and sell that information to advertisers.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> So that\u2019s the \u201cjob\u201d: By using this browser, you\u2019re producing value for the company\u2014 you\u2019re working for them. Joe and Sarah told Zach they never got any special browser. And of course there\u2019s another thing they might have expected to get from a job, ANY job: A paycheck.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s how Zach says that absence gets explained.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: These data companies have been described to me as sort of, they\u2019re startups, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> And here\u2019s where the full name of this company comes into play: ?Outreach Data Partners Limited Partnership. On paper, Joe and Sarah aren\u2019t mere employees, they\u2019re \u2026 limited partners\u2014 part owners. But in a company that hasn\u2019t started making money yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: Maybe they have a millionth share of the company. And so if the company starts making a lot of money, they will get a check.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think Joe and Sarah are holding their breath for a check from Outreach Data Partners.<\/p>\n According to the Bloomberg story the company doesn\u2019t have a public-facing website, and LinkedIn doesn\u2019t list any employees. But the story also says that in a government filing the company claims 4,800 workers.<\/p>\n Zach and Zeke checked out the company\u2019s headquarters: Box 371 at a UPS store in an Atlanta strip mall \u2014 between a dry cleaner and a Vietnamese restaurant.\u00a0<\/p>\n They found more than a dozen other companies using the same mailbox as their address \u2014 companies with names like Consumer Data Partners. All told, their story says these companies claim more than 30,000 employees.<\/p>\n And when Zach and Zeke started calling people connected to those companies, they ended up talking with the guy who seems to have invented what they call this fake-jobs healthcare setup.<\/p>\n A guy named Bill Bryan.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: Bill Bryan, was a pretty successful sitcom writer in the eighties and nineties. He wrote for Night Court<\/strong><\/p>\n Judge from Night Court: What\u2019s up Mac?<\/strong><\/p>\n Mack from Night Court: A little case of disturbing the piece at a Star Trek convention, sir.<\/strong><\/p>\n Zach Mider: And Coach<\/strong><\/p>\n Craig Nelson: I didn\u2019t lose the game. The team lost the game. I didn\u2019t.<\/strong><\/p>\n Zach Mider: And he wrote for a bunch of others. And then he does some real estate deals. He gets involved in some other investments. He ends up being a fairly wealthy guy and looking for new things to invest in, and comes across the idea of doing something with health plans.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> ?Zach says, the idea was this: Obamacare had imposed standards on a lot of health insurance. Minimum stuff that had to be covered. Hospitalization. Mental health services. Prescription drugs. But covering all that stuff is expensive. It means premiums can be high, even with subsidies. And deductibles can be super-high: Thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n So Bill Bryan thought\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: maybe if there was a way of designing a product that was legal. That covered less stuff than Obamacare, but still gave people what they wanted. You know? Um, it\u2019s a free country. Maybe people should be able to decide what kind of healthcare they wanna buy and not have to meet all these minimum standards that maybe they\u2019re not interested in.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> So the plan that Sarah and Joe got sold, Zach says it does not meet those minimum standards. He says it covers like three doctor visits a year, a couple of lab services, and not a lot else.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: No coverage for hospitalization, no cover for emergency room visits. There is a prescription or there is a pharmacy benefit, but it only covers generics.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Zach says Bill Bryan really thinks: that\u2019s a product somebody might prefer to an Obamacare plan with a high deductible. Under the Affordable Care Act, you can\u2019t sell that product as insurance. Actually, if you have a lot of employees, you can\u2019t offer it to them either.\u00a0<\/p>\n But as a health-insurance law expert at Georgetown told me: You could maybe offer it to OWNERS of your company.<\/p>\n So by making people like Joe and Sarah LIMITED PARTNERS, maybe you could offer them this kind of super-stripped-down health plan legally.<\/p>\n Zach says: Bill Bryan thinks of this as a way to fix a problem he sees with Obamacare: Full coverage is too expensive for some people.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: He\u2019s a very smart guy, and so over the years he\u2019s had to fight a lot for this, and I think that\u2019s only kind of strengthened his conviction that it would be a corrective to the Obamacare system to have something that\u2019s more affordable and more accessible for people to get.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong>Of course, that\u2019s not what Joe and Sarah wanted \u2013 price wasn\u2019t their top concern. They needed insurance that covered their providers, their treatments, their tests, their meds. That\u2019s what they thought they were paying for.<\/p>\n I asked Zach and Zeke, what does Bill Bryan say about the kind of thing that happened to Joe and Sarah?\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: So it, it\u2019s really important to point out here that like Bill Bryan didn\u2019t sell the plan to Joe and Sarah. You know, he doesn\u2019t do the call centers, right? These salespeople are all kind of independent operators who are essentially just selling this stuff for a commission. And so, he certainly doesn\u2019t defend anybody misleading a customer.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> According to Bloomberg\u2019s story, Bryan said he had cut ties with the agency that sold Joe and Sarah their plan \u2014 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n And when he was told that the agency had sold the couple one of his plans much more recently, Bryan said, \u201cThat is absolutely news to me. I just don\u2019t have anything more to say about any of these motherfuckers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Zeke Faux: When we were talking with Bryan, though\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> That\u2019s Zach\u2019s reporting partner, Zeke Faux.<\/p>\n Zeke Faux: \u2026he and his colleagues were pretty evasive about exactly how these plans are sold.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Zeke says the way the plans are sold \u2014 specifically, the big commission rates for salespeople \u2014 was one of the reasons he and Zach got interested in this story in the first place.<\/p>\n Zeke Faux: Basically, the percentage of whatever the customer\u2019s paying that is going to the salesman and the various middlemen involved is so high that it\u2019s kind of hard to imagine that the customer could be getting a good deal.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Even if the plan was cheap. Zach had pulled some data, crunched some numbers. The Bloomberg story says\u2014 at least in some cases\u2014 all those commissions and fees added up to 74 percent of what people like Joe and Sarah paid for these plans.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: If a person\u2019s paying a dollar almost 74 cents is gonna go to commission to other various middlemen and whatever and only 26 cents is left for actually going into the pool from which medical care is paid out of.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> 26 cents for medical care. So, just to compare. Obamacare requires insurance plans to spend at least 80 cents of every dollar on medical care.<\/p>\n Everything else \u2014 your sales operation, all your admin costs \u2014 including the people who deny claims\u2014 and<\/strong> your CEO\u2019s pay, and<\/strong> your profits \u2014 has to come out of that remaining 20 cents.\u00a0<\/p>\n With Bill Bryan\u2019s plans, Zach\u2019s numbers show that ratio can get almost flipped: 26 cents for medical care. 74 cents for commissions, fees, everything else<\/p>\n Zeke says: They brought these issues up to Bill Bryan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zeke Faux: And when we tried to ask about that, Bryan and his colleagues pleaded ignorance, as if it was not really their business how the salesmen got paid.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> And this is a big, big theme in this story: There\u2019s no SINGLE entity doing all of this. It\u2019s a chain of different players, and each one can blame the others.<\/p>\n Bill Bryan blamed the sales outfit for what happened to Joe and Sarah.\u00a0<\/p>\n And that company? Their CEO told Zach and Zeke that Outreach Data Partners screwed up, denying claims for the Strohmengers that should\u2019ve been paid. And as the Bloomberg story reports: Bill Bryan dismissed that notion.<\/p>\n But there are more links in this chain than that. For instance, Outreach Data Partners \u2014 the company that theoretically made Joe and Sarah limited partners?<\/p>\n Bill Bryan does not run it. He doesn\u2019t run ANY of the companies that employ 30,000 people from a mailbox in an Atlanta strip mall.<\/p>\n Which isn\u2019t to say that he has nothing to do with them. That\u2019s next.<\/p>\n This episode of An Arm and a Leg is produced in partnership with KFF Health News. That\u2019s a nonprofit newsroom covering health issues in America. Their journalists do amazing work. We\u2019re honored to be their colleagues.<\/p>\n So, Bill Bryan seems to be the mastermind behind what Bloomberg calls these 30,000 fake-jobs, and the health plans they offer.<\/p>\n But no, he doesn\u2019t run the data companies behind those jobs. That would be illegal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: The data companies themselves wouldn\u2019t be allowed under federal labor law to turn a profit on these health plans.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> I mean, that sounds like a good law: Your boss isn\u2019t supposed to make money by selling you a health plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: So it\u2019s all very segregated. They\u2019re very careful to say these data companies are separate from us. The data companies are employing these people and they are sponsoring these health plans. And Bill Bryan\u2019s role is he runs a series of vendors which provides services to the data companies.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Services like \u2026 running a health plan! Which, for a normal company, is a normal arrangement.<\/p>\n Remember how we said: Lots of employer health plans \u2014 ones tied to normal jobs\u2014 are exempt from state insurance laws?<\/p>\n The way those plans are set up, the employer normally hires a vendor \u2014 typically a big insurance company, like Blue Cross or Aetna \u2014 to run their health plan.<\/p>\n These data companies, instead of hiring Aetna to administer a health plan \u2014 for their 30 thousand \u201climited partners\u201d \u2014 they\u2019re hiring a company that Bill Bryan happens to run.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: I think he\u2019s done a pretty good job of keeping these things formally separate, right? So he\u2019s not formally in control. He doesn\u2019t own the data companies, doesn\u2019t formally direct their activities.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> But Zach says: Bill Bryan seems to have had a hand in getting them set up. So they could offer health plans. That he could run.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: I think it\u2019s fair to say that this was his and his partner\u2019s idea, this whole kind of construct. But he\u2019s tried pretty hard to, as a formal matter, make it compliant with federal labor law.<\/strong><\/p>\n Zeke Faux: I feel like we should call the data companies and be like, hey, I can see that you have a lot of complaints about your health plan. It might be hurting recruiting. You know, would you like to switch to Aetna? Then we could find out if, uh \u2014 how independent they are.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> That\u2019s Zeke again, and yeah: He and Zach wrote in their story that they found HUNDREDS of complaints to the Federal Trade Commission, and the Better Business Bureau, and Apple\u2019s App store about health plans tied to fake jobs.<\/p>\n A graphic that goes with their story shows dozens of quotes, like: This whole thing feels like a big scam that I fell for.<\/p>\n And: I can\u2019t imagine I am the only person who has been lied to and basically stolen from.<\/p>\n And: Stay away at all costs.<\/p>\n Which raises a big question: Is any of this really legal? Isn\u2019t there someone regulating it?<\/p>\n Zach says Bill Bryan wants answers to those questions too.\u00a0<\/p>\n Seven years ago, a data company the Bloomberg story describes as \u201callied with Bryan\u201d went to the Labor Department for clarification\u2014 and validation. Basically, they said:<\/p>\n Zach Mider: We want you to sign off on this and confirm to everyone in the marketplace that this is legit. That these are real employees, these limited partner employees who are downloading the web browser are real employees, and that therefore we can sell \u2019em, these health plans without any problem. And the Department of Labor when push came to shove said, no, these aren\u2019t employees. You\u2019re just trying to sell insurance.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> Bryan\u2019s allies went to court to fight back.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Mider: And they\u2019re still fighting over it all these many years later. That was 2018 when they were first trying to get this opinion. And um, now it\u2019s 2025 and it\u2019s still unresolved.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> ?Here\u2019s what\u2019s happened so far: A district judge ruled against the Labor Department, calling its opinion \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d An appeals court later agreed with that conclusion, but sent the case back to the district court to reconsider other details, including: what should happen next.<\/p>\n Zach Mider: So the way it stands, it\u2019s really in a kind of strange limbo, where the Department of Labor really doesn\u2019t get to say, these are legit, or these are not while we wait for the litigation to play out. But it does open the door for other people like Bill Bryan to come into the marketplace and start selling this kind of stuff.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> And it looks like they have. The Bloomberg story has a chart, showing the number of households enrolled in \u201cfake jobs\u201d plans. After the appeals court ruled against the labor department, the numbers more than doubled.<\/p>\n And meanwhile, NOBODY is regulating these plans. They\u2019re not traditional insurance plans, so state insurance departments don\u2019t have jurisdiction. So with the federal case on hold, people like Sarah and Joe have no one to turn to.<\/p>\n In a letter to the editor that Bloomberg published, Bill Bryan blames what happened to people like Sarah and Joe on the Labor Department, for not validating his model.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the department stepped up and played its proper role,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe fraud reported in your story could have very well been prevented.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cAt a minimum, it would give victims someplace to seek recourse.\u201d<\/p>\n So: everybody\u2019s got somebody else to blame.\u00a0<\/p>\n Which is one of the themes that connects Bill Bryan\u2019s story with a totally WILD tale that Zeke traced to Florida. One that doesn\u2019t start out sounding like it has anything to do with health insurance.<\/p>\n In 2024, he writes, \u201cif you were poor and online, certain ads were everywhere you looked.\u201d<\/p>\n These ads featured celebrity deepfakes \u2014 promising 6 thousand four hundred dollars, if you call a certain phone number.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zeke Faux: I mean, it looks like it\u2019s Taylor Swift, and she\u2019s saying\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Fake Taylor Swift: Remember those stimulus checks? Well, there\u2019s a new thing going viral.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Zeke Faux: Or it\u2019s Dr. Phil and he\u2019s saying..<\/strong><\/p>\n Fake Dr. Phil: They\u2019re giving out $6,400 to anyone who makes the call\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Zeke Faux: Or Andrew Tate saying\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Fake Andrew Tate: If you don\u2019t act now, you\u2019re basically throwing away $6,400. That\u2019s just stupid.<\/strong><\/p>\n Zeke Faux: And these ads didn\u2019t even, they might briefly mention health insurance or maybe they don\u2019t say health insurance at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> But if you called that number, you\u2019d end up talking with someone ready to sign you up for health insurance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sign you up so quickly that\u2026 you might not have any idea that\u2019s what had just happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n Or, for that matter, that no, you would not be getting 64 hundred bucks to spend.<\/p>\n This story goes in some WILD directions, but here\u2019s how Zeke describes the connection with the fake-jobs saga.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zeke Faux: in reporting both of these stories, I think what we learned is that there is kind of a subculture of call center operators who have turned what seems like a pretty boring business selling health insurance into a get rich quick kind of operation.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan:<\/strong> The call centers, the telemarketers. That\u2019s the connection\u2014 Bloomberg paired these stories under the heading \u201cHealth Care Hustlers.\u201dAnd those hustlers are always looking for a new angle.\u00a0<\/p>\n Which is to say: Zeke and Zach\u2019s stories reinforce a big Arm and a Leg rule:\u00a0<\/p>\n If the internet leads you to a phone call with someone who says they\u2019ve got a GREAT health insurance deal for you\u2026 be very, very suspicious.<\/p>\n And a lot of people will be looking for deals on health insurance.\u00a0<\/p>\n During the Biden Administration, Congress added more-generous subsidies to Obamacare plans, which made them more affordable.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unless Congress re-ups them soon\u2014 which seems unlikely\u2014 those extra subsidies will expire this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n People will look for alternatives, and these call centers will offer them.<\/p>\n In a way, it\u2019s back to the future:\u00a0<\/p>\n The first Trump Administration loosened certain rules, making it easier to sell short-term plans that didn\u2019t meet Obamacare standards. Zeke says he reported on the results back then.<\/p>\n Zeke Faux: I spoke with people who had bought these plans and then had medical emergencies and been stuck with 50 or a hundred thousand dollar bills, so we\u2019ll be \u2014 we\u2019re kinda watching to see what new products emerge or what these call centers start selling.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dan: <\/strong>And meanwhile, just \u2014 look:\u00a0 Don\u2019t buy insurance over the phone from somebody you\u2019ve never met. Don\u2019t bother with google. Healthcare dot gov. That\u2019s basically it.\u00a0<\/p>\n What you\u2019ll find there, I\u2019m not saying you\u2019ll love it. It\u2019s probably gonna cost more than you want to pay, and deductibles will likely be high.\u00a0<\/p>\n But even though subsidies for Obamacare plans aren\u2019t AS generous this year, they still exist. And these policies are regulated. Anything else\u2026 like Sarah Strohmenger said, it\u2019s a free-for-all. And there are some hustlers out there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile: the Trump Administration and Congress have both set up changes to the ACA marketplaces \u2014 administrative hassles that will make it harder to get, and keep, your coverage.<\/p>\n The time to start planning for it is now. And we\u2019re gonna have some help for you, starting with next week\u2019s First Aid Kit newsletter.\u00a0<\/p>\n My colleague Claire Davenport has been digging into those changes, what they mean for all of us, and how we can start preparing.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can sign up on our website at armandalegshow dot com, slash, first aid kit.<\/p>\n By the way: We just launched a new version of our website \u2014 with a brand new feature: Starter Packs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s where we bring together our best reporting on questions you need answers to, like: How do I shop for health insurance?\u00a0<\/p>\n We\u2019ll have a link wherever you\u2019re listening,\u00a0<\/p>\n and we\u2019ll be back with a new episode in a few weeks.<\/p>\n Until then, take care of yourself.<\/p>\n This episode of An Arm and a Leg was produced by Emily Pisacreta and me, Dan Weissmann \u2014 with help from Lauren Gould\u2014<\/p>\n And edited by Ellen Weiss.<\/p>\n Claire Davenport is our engagement producer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Adam Raymonda is our audio wizard.<\/p>\n Our music is by Dave Weiner and Blue Dot Sessions.<\/p>\n Bea Bosco is our consulting director of operations.<\/p>\n Lynne Johnson is our operations manager.<\/p>\n An Arm and a Leg is produced in partnership with KFF Health News. That\u2019s a national newsroom producing in-depth journalism about health issues in America \u2014 and a core program at KFF: an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.<\/p>\n Zach Dyer is senior audio producer at KFF Health News. He\u2019s the editorial liaison to this show.<\/p>\n An Arm and a Leg is Distributed by KUOW \u2014 Seattle\u2019s NPR station.<\/p>\n And thanks to the Institute for Nonprofit News for serving as our fiscal sponsor.<\/p>\n They allow us to accept tax-exempt donations. You can learn more about INN at INN.org.<\/p>\n Finally, thank you to everybody who supports this show financially. You can join in any time at Arm and a Leg show, dot com, slash: support.<\/p>\n Thanks! And thanks for listening.<\/p>\n \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d is a co-production of KFF Health News and Public Road Productions.<\/p>\n For more from the team at \u201cAn Arm and a Leg,\u201d subscribe to its weekly newsletter, First Aid Kit<\/a>. You can also\u00a0follow the show on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the social platform X<\/a>. And if you\u2019ve got stories to tell about the health care system, the producers\u00a0would love to hear from you<\/a>.<\/p>\n To hear all KFF Health News podcasts, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n And subscribe to \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d on Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Pocket Casts<\/a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.<\/em><\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t@danweissmann\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\tCredits\t<\/h3>\n
\n\tProducer<\/p>\n
\n\tProducer<\/p>\n
\n\tAudio wizard<\/p>\n
\n\tEditor<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n