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10 Questions with ... Dan Weissmann
September 3, 2019
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
I was a print reporter in Chicago for a long time, trying to figure out how to get over to public-radio, where Ira Glass was making radio that sounded really fun. Eventually I got a shot. Worked as a staff reporter at WBEZ and Marketplace, and contributed to outlets like 99 Percent Invisible, Reveal and Planet Money... and then started this crazy project.
1. What was the trigger for doing this podcast? What drew you to doing a podcast about the American health care system?
I'd been pitching employers like WBEZ and Marketplace on a series like this for years. That was partly because the issue is such a big deal in my own family-- my wife and I have made huge, tough career choices based on the need for decent health insurance-- and partly because it's such a huge deal for so many people. And because the stories are both super personal-- they're about our bodies and our pocketbooks, at their most vulnerable--- and because they go in all directions: science, economics, politics, all the big-picture nerdy stuff that I love, all rooted in intimate stories, often life-and-death stories.
And why use the podcast form rather than, say, print or radio or online posts? How does the topic lend itself to the podcast form?
I think audio is a great medium for intimacy and for breaking down complicated topics, and podcasts are amazingly cheap and flexible compared to radio.
2. The podcast mostly avoids taking a political stance in favor of telling stories and reporting on the vagaries of the system. But the finale of season two, about a clinic in Indiana bringing medical services to people who can't afford it, raises a question: can an effective health care system in America co-exist with an unrestricted profit motive? Or is some kind of government intervention -- whether single payer or Medicare for All or rate regulation -- inevitably required to ensure everyone has equal access to health care?
It's definitely intentional that the show doesn't take an overtly political stance. I mean, health care is one of the issues-- and there are a bunch-- where big-picture discussions quickly slot into our super-polarized political debates. People dig in and stop listening to each other. Meanwhile, we're all suffering like crazy.
And when I say all of us, that includes people working inside the system-- I hear from them all the time. Yesterday, I heard from a listener who identified himself as a scientist for Big Pharma (and added "cue ominous music"). He had filled out the listener survey and said that one of the things he got out of the show was feeling "less alone with this garbage system."
If we're going to evaluate any big-picture policy ideas, we're going to have to figure out a LOT about how things got so messed up, and find some common ground, a common set of facts.
And no matter what your policy prescription might be for getting everybody a shot at accessing adequate health care -- say it's single-payer -- we're years and years away from seeing that happen. Like, if there's a wave election in 2020, and huge legislation happens in the first hundred days-- well, that would put us in late-spring 2021. And by that time, the hospitals and health-insurance players? They've pretty much got 2022 mapped out and locked in. So the earliest we could see anything implemented would be 2023.
And remember, this is assuming that everything happens at lightning speed: If I were to go to Las Vegas and ask for odds on that scenario playing out, I would expect those odds to have a bunch of zeroes.
And even if that were to all happen at that pace... 2023 seems pretty dang far away. In a recent poll, 45 percent of people said a big medical event would bankrupt them. That's one stat, there are a lot of others, and they all show: Tons and tons of us are hurting like crazy, and pretty much all of us are at huge risk. We've gotta learn as much as we can, as fast as we can, about what we're up against-- and about what we can do to help ourselves. I think the show has plenty of work to do.
3. You've relayed some interesting stories on the podcast; among them and those that haven't yet made it to the show, which have been, to you, the most compelling? Which stories sum up the American health care morass?
Man, if I could sum that up, I'd stop doing the show!
4. The show is now tied in to Kaiser Health News, the news service that is not, as you have made clear on the show, part of Kaiser Permanente but merely has its roots in the same Kaiser steel empire. How did the Kaiser ties come about, and what does the relationship mean for the podcast in terms of resources?
When I first started working on An Arm and a Leg — like, before it even had a name — people told me: There’s this book you have to read, called An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business, and How You Can Take It Back.
I got the book, and they were 100% right. The author, Elisabeth Rosenthal, was a New York Times reporter for more than 20 years, and spent her last few years at the paper covering the cost of health care. Oh, also: She’s an M.D.
A few years ago, she left the Times, published the book, and became editor-in-chief at Kaiser Health News.
The book is a map of everything this show is looking at. And by then I had subscribed to the daily email that Kaiser Health News puts, and it features a ton of amazing reporting, every day.
So, I wanted to get in touch with Elisabeth Rosenthal, but it took me a while to work up my nerve. Like: Until midway through Season One, when one of her reporters, Jenny Gold, was featured as one of the main voices in our episode about Why Health Insurance Actually Sucks.
The morning before we posted that episode, I wrote Elisabeth Rosenthal a note that said, essentially: Hi there. Big fan. Interviewed one of your reporters, posting the episode tonight, hope you like it, would love to talk sometime.
She wrote back, a few hours later, with a note that started: Hi Dan, Good to hear from you – actually, I was going to reach out to you.... and it included an invite to come to D.C. to meet, and talk about how to collaborate. We landed on them becoming co-producers of the show.
For Season Two, that primarily meant financial support-- not enough to pay all our bills, but a huge help-- and a lot of support in putting out the word about the show to their fans-- and in the world of health care, they've got a lot of fans. They also published stories that extended and amplified some of the stories from our episodes.
For Season Three, we're hoping to take more advantage of their journalistic resources, which are tremendous. We had a planning session at their offices in August, and it was super-exciting.
5. It would be easy for a podcast on a topic like health care to become either depressing or clinical, but the tone of "An Arm and a Leg" is much more entertaining. How do you keep your show from becoming a pit of despair?
I'm dedicated to it not being one. That's an ongoing improvisation, but as a reporter, I'm pretty hard-core dedicated to pleasure. There are less-stressful, more-secure, better-paying ways to make a living, so if it's not fun... there's no good reason to do it.
6. Regarding your extensive experience in public radio reporting, of the stuff you've done other than "An Arm and a Leg," what are the stories that stand out as making you the most proud?
What a nice question to ask! The first one that comes to mind is a story I did for 99 Percent Invisible a long time ago, about the Chicago River. It's called Reversal of Fortune, and it's about the city's amazing, decades-long struggle to save itself from its own poop.
7. Let's say that the health care issue gets solved tomorrow (magic wand or something like that). Or even if it isn't... what topics would you like to tackle next? Doesn't have to be too specific, but what general topic categories are in your wheelhouse that you'd want to address?
If this got solved tomorrow, I might feel like I'd done my bit! I'd go take a long sabbatical and maybe finally read Robert Caro's shelf full of books about Lyndon Johnson. I haven't gotten around to reading War and Peace yet either. Maybe I could do a show where we just talked about reading super-long books, the way people have shows where they recap a different episode of an iconic TV show every week.
8. Who have been your career and life influences and inspirations?
I'm just going to name favorite books to start with, because now I'm thinking about books: Leaves of Grass, Moby-Dick, 100 Years of Solitude, The Fire Next Time, Homage to Catalonia, Mountains Beyond Mountains, and pretty much everything by Lynda Barry. Which makes me sound really pretentious (and is very guy-heavy). But whatever, that's the nerd I actually am. I'm reading Toni Morrison's Jazz right now, and it blows everything else away.
I'm in completely-delighted awe of Lin-Manuel Miranda's accomplishment with Hamilton. Seeing Bruce Springsteen when I was a teenager opened my eyes and heart and spirit. Thelonious Monk. Lizzo.
Studs Terkel and Ira Glass blew the doors off of what journalism could be, how much heart and how much craft and how much pleasure could be involved.
And did you see that documentary about the New York Times, "Page One"? David Carr shows how much fun being a reporter is. And how necessary it is to have that kind of fun: He's at the top of this world-- a reporter at the NYT -- and he spends the whole movie basically wondering, "Are we gonna make it? Is my career about to end? Is this it?"
I worked for a beautiful, oddball, ambitious experimental theater about 15 years ago, and I was just thinking this morning how lucky I was to be there, and how many of the people I worked with are still inspirations. They're my people.
Also, my mom, my wife, my son, my collaborators on this show, and my first radio editor, the incredible Cate Cahan.
9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _______________.
...coffee. Of course.
10. What's the most important lesson you've learned in your career so far?
My boss at the theater told me a story during our annual review, about a conversation he'd had with his son, who was about five at the time. "I told him, 'You only have two jobs: Have fun, and be kind.' And then he asked me, 'What are your jobs?' And I said, 'Have fun, be kind, and keep you safe.'"
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