By Dan Weissmann November 14,
2019
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see the audio player? Click here to
listen.
Health
care — and how much it costs — is scary. But you’re not alone with this stuff,
and knowledge is power. “An Arm and a Leg” is a podcast about these issues, and
its second season is co-produced by KHN.
When
Stephanie Wittels Wachs found out that health insurance in Texas didn’t cover
hearing aids for kids, she lobbied to change Texas law. And she won. But the
process took more than two years.
“You’re
constantly just like bugging everyone you know, like, ‘Please call! Please
text! Please call! Please email!’” Wittels Wachs said. “You just become like
this broken record.”
It was
a grind, but along the way, Wittels Wachs found surprising allies. The bill’s
sponsor in the state Senate was Lois Kolkhorst, a deep-red Republican with
family members who are deaf.
“You
end up getting into bed with people who, you’re like, ‘They’re the worst!’ But
you find out they’re not the worst,” Wittels Wachs said.
Stephanie Wittels Wachs’ daughter, Iris, was born
hearing-impaired. Wittels Wachs was shocked to learn that the hearing aids her
daughter needed would cost $6,000, and would not be covered by her health
insurance.
Season
3’s Episode 1 of “An Arm And A Leg” unveils the moment when Sen. Kolkhorst made
an emotional pitch to her fellow lawmakers. It worked. Texas now requires health plans to cover medically
necessary hearing aids and cochlear implants for children.
Wittels
Wachs has a daughter born hearing-impaired, and she was shocked to learn that
the hearing aids her daughter needed would cost $6,000, and not be covered by
her health insurance.
But her
activism didn’t come from financial need; it came after a personal tragedy.
Wittels Wachs’ brother, Harris Wittels — a comic who wrote for TV comedies like
“Parks and Recreation” — died of a heroin overdose around the time Wittels
Wachs’ daughter turned 1 year old.
“I just
needed a place to put a lot of my inability to bring my brother back, my
inability to change the fact that my daughter couldn’t hear,” Wittels Wachs
said. “All of these things happened at once that I couldn’t fix.”
Wittels
Wachs is the host of “Last Day,” a new podcast
about the opioid crisis and the author of “Everything Is Horrible and
Wonderful,” a memoir about grieving her brother.
Season
3 is a co-production of Kaiser Health News and Public Road Productions.
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in touch with “An Arm and a Leg,” subscribe to the newsletter. You can
also follow the show on Facebook and Twitter. And if you’ve got stories to tell
about the health care system, the producers would love to hear from you.
To hear
all Kaiser Health News podcasts, click here.
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