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Health care and how much it costs is scary. But youre not alone with this stuff, and knowledge is power. An Arm and a Leg is a podcast about these issues, and is co-produced by KFF Health News.VISIT ARMANDALEGSHOW.COM

Federal law requires that all nonprofit hospitals have financial assistance policies also known as charity care to reduce or expunge peoples medical bills. New research from Dollar For, an organization dedicated to helping people get access to charity care, suggests that fewer than one-third of people who qualify for charity care actually receive it. 

An Arm and a Leg host Dan Weissmann talks with Dollar For founder Jared Walker about its recent work, and how new state programs targeting medical debt in places like North Carolina may change the way hospitals approach charity care. 

Plus, a listener from New York shares a helpful resource for navigating charity care appeals. Dan Weissmann @danweissmann Host 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. Credits Emily Pisacreta Producer Claire Davenport Producer Adam Raymonda Audio wizard Ellen Weiss Editor Click to open the Transcript Transcript: New Lessons in the Fight for Charity Care Note: An Arm and a Leg 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.

Dan: Hey there–

Clara lives in New York City with her husband Remy and their family. And, recently, over the course of a year, they had some … medical encounters. At hospitals.

Nothing super-dramatic: Remy broke his ankle in August of last year. Hello, emergency room. Hello, ER bill.

They had a second baby in November 2023 a boy! who ended up needing to spend a day in neonatal intensive care. He’s fine. They named him Isaac.

And one night early this year, Isaac just… wasn’t looking good. Lethargic. Had a fever.

Clara: We decided to give him Tylenol. Um, and he spit it all back out.

Dan: They took his temp again. A hundred and three point five.

Clara: We started Googling, um, what is like dangerously high fever for a baby

Dan: And yep. For a baby that little, a hundred three point five is starting to get iffy. Like possible risk of seizure. But it was late at night. No pediatrician, no urgent care. Hello new, unwelcome questions.

Clara: The last thing you want to be thinking about is, Oh shit, this is going to be really expensive. You want to be thinking about, let’s go to the ER right now, make sure he doesn’t have a seizure.

Dan: So they went. And the folks at the ER gave Isaac more tylenol, he didn’t spit it out, his fever went down. They went home, relieved about Isaac and a little anxious about the bills.

After insurance, they were looking at more than eight thousand dollars. Clara didn’t think her family could afford anything like that.

And the billing office didn’t offer super-encouraging advice.

Clara: basically every time I’ve called, they said, why don’t you start making small payments now so it doesn’t go into collections.

Dan: However. Clara listens to An Arm and a Leg. Where we’ve been talking about something called charity care for years. This summer, we asked listeners to send us their bills and tell us about their experience with charity care. Clara was one of the folks who responded.

Just to recap: Federal law requires all nonprofit hospitals to have charity care policies, also called financial assistance.

To reduce people’s bills, or even forgive them entirely, if their income falls below a level the hospital sets.

We’ve been super-interested in charity care here for almost four years, ever since a guy named Jared Walker blew up on TikTok spreading the word and offering to help people apply, through the nonprofit he runs, Dollar For.

Since then, we’ve learned a LOT about charity care. Dollar For has grown from an infinitesimally tiny organization — basically Jared, not getting paid much -to a small one, with 15 people on staff.

Jared says they’ve helped people with thousands of applications and helped to clear millions of dollars in hospital bills.

And in the past year, they’ve been up to a LOT and theyve been learning alot. Before we pick up Clara’s story which ends with her offering a new resource we can share let’s get a big download from Jared.

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’m Dan Weissmann. I’m a reporter, and I like a challenge. So the job we’ve chosen on this show is to take one of the most enraging, terrifying, depressing parts of American life- and bring you a show that’s entertaining, empowering and useful.

In early 2024, Dollar For put out a couple of big research reports documenting how much charity care doesn’t get awarded. And why people don’t receive it.

Jared: I feel like for a long time we have been looking around at the experts, right? Who are the experts? And where can we find them and what can we ask them?

Dan: Finally, they undertook a major research project of their own. They analyzed thousands of IRS filings from nonprofit hospitals, and compared what they found to a study from the state of Maryland based on even more precise data.

And they hired a firm to survey a sample of more than 11 hundred people. Then ran focus groups to dig in for more detail.

Jared: I think that what these reports have just revealed is like, we are the experts like dollar for actually knows more than everyone else about this.

Dan: The amount of charity care that hospitals do not give to people who qualify for it?

The data analysis produced a number: 14 billion dollars. Which Jared and his colleagues say is a conservative estimate.

The survey showed that more than half of people who qualify for charity care do not get it. About two thirds of those folks do not know that it exists. Some people who know about it just don’t apply. And some who do get rejected, even though they qualify.

Their conclusion: We found that only 29% of patients with hospital bills they cannot afford are able to learn about, apply for, and receive charity care. None of which surprised Jared.

Jared: It’s like, Oh, like our assumptions have been correct on this. Like people don’t know about charity care. The process sucks. Um, a lot of people that should get it, don’t get it. Um, and hospitals have put all the pain and all of the responsibility on the patient

Dan: Those topline findings put Dollar For’s accomplishments in context.

Jared: Like we have submitted over 20, 000 of these financial assistance applications.

Dan: 20, 000 people. That’s spectacular. That’s I know you’re counting the money. How much money is it that you’re talking about so far?

Jared: I think we’re closing in on 70 million, 70 million in medical debt relief. So

Dan: Right. It’s a start.

Jared: there you go.

Dan: Its a start.

Jared: It sounds great, and then you see the 14 billion number and you’re like, oh, shoot. What are we doing? What are we doing?

Dan: laugh crying emoji.

Jared: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: And so, for most of the year, Jared and his team have been testing a strategy to take on a 14 billion dollar problem.

Jared: We have spent the year trying to work with hospitals. We came at this how do we put a dent in the 14 billion? If it’s not going to be through TikTok, and it’s not going to be through individual patint advocacy, then what if we moved further upstream, and instead of patients finding out about us one to three months after they get a bill, what if they heard about us at the hospital?

Dan: Jared envisioned patients getting evaluated for charity care, and getting referred to Dollar For for help applying, before they check out. He thought

Jared: Maybe we could make a bigger dent into that 14 billion. And, I think that that was wishful thinking.

Dan: Wishful thinking. That’s how Jared now describes his hopes that hospitals would see that they could do better by patients, with his help, and sign right up to work with him.

Jared: Um, well they haven’t, Dan. So, we don’t have, uh, you know, we’ve got one hospital.

We’ve got one hospital. I don’t know if there’s a smaller hospital in the United States. It is Catalina Island Health. It is a small hospital on an island off the coast of California

And when patients go in there, they tell them about Dollar For, and they send them over. Um, that was what we were hoping to do with these larger systems.

Dan: Jared talked to a lot of hospitals. He went to conferences for hospital revenue-department administrators. He didn’t get a lot of traction

Jared: You know, this is one thing where I’m like, I don’t want to be totally unfair to the hospitals.

They’re huge entities that you can’t just move quickly like that.

it is going to take a lot more on their end than it would on our end, we could spin up one of these partnerships in a week.

And. They’re going to need a lot of time and it’s going to, you know, how do we implement this? Um, you know, with a small Catalina Island hospital it was easy, but if you’re talking to Ascension

Dan: Ascension Healthcare– a big Catholic hospital system. A hundred thirty-six hospitals. More than a hundred thirty thousand employees. Across 18 states, plus DC. Jared says they might get thousands of charity care applications a month. A deal to steer folks to Jared isnt a simple handshake arrangement.

Jared: How do you, how do you do that? You know, how do you implement that? I mean, it’s a pain in the ass. And these hospitals, and more so, hospitals are not motivated to figure this out.

Dan: Yeah. Right.

Jared: Unless you’re in North Carolina,

Dan: North Carolina. In 2023, North Carolina expanded Medicaid. In July 2024, Governor Roy Cooper announced a program that would use Medicaid money to reward hospitals for forgiving Medical debt.

Gov. Roy Cooper: under this program. Hospitals can earn more by forgiving medical debt than trying to collect it. This is a win win win.

Dan: Under the program, hospitals can get more Medicaid dollars if they meet certain conditions. One, forgive a bunch of existing medical debts. Another: Make sure their charity care policies protect patients who meet income threhholds set by the state.

A third: they have to pro-actively identify patients who are eligible for charity care — and notify those patients before sending a bill, maybe even before they leave the hospital.

Jared: I’m very excited to see how that looks in the future. Because if you remember, the big four, like our shit list, is Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina.

Dan: Jared’s shit list. The states where, over the years, he has heard from the greatest number of people who have difficulty getting hospital charity care. Where he often has to fight hardest to help them get it.

Jareds shit list, the big four, were the four biggest states (by population) that had rejected the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Because of how the ACA was written, no Medicaid expansion means a lot more people who don’t have a lot of money and just don’t have ANY insurance at all.

It’s a giant problem. And North Carolina was one of those states where it was toughest.

Jared: And in, you know, the span of a year, North Carolina has expanded Medicaid, and created one of the best medical debt charity care policies in the country.

This law essentially says that they have to identify them early. So that’s like on paper, you know, it sounds amazing.

Dan: Onpaper it sounds amazing. We’ll come back to that. But first, let’s make clear: This wasn’t a sudden transformation. The governor, Roy Cooper, who we heard in that clip? He spent like seven years pushing the state to expand Medicaid.

The legislature finally agreed in 2023. And then Cooper and his team spent months this year figuring out how to bake medical-debt relief into the plan. It took a ton of maneuvering.

Our pals at KFF Health News covered the process. Here’s Ames Alexander, who reported that story with Noam Levy, describing the process on a public radio show called “Due South.”

Coopers team started out by trying to quietly bounce their ideas off a few hospitals..

Ames Alexander KFF Health News: But then word got back to the hospital industry’s powerful lobbying group. That’s the North Carolina Healthcare Association. And the Association was not at all happy about it. .

Dan: They raised a stink. And claimed the whole thing would be illegal, the feds shouldn’t approve it.

Cooper and his health secretary Cody Kinsley got kept going– and they did get the feds to sign off on the plan. So it was legal.

But it wasn’t mandatory. They were offering hospitals money, but those hospitals needed to say yes. And that didn’t happen right away.

Ames Alexander KFF Health News: When Cooper and Kinsley unveiled this plan on July 1st, there wasn’t a single hospital official who would join them there for the press conference. Ultimately, though, all 99 of the state’s hospitals signed on. And it’s not, it’s not really hard to understand why they stood to lose a lot of federal money.

Dan: Lose OUT on a ton of NEW federal money. A ton. According to KFF’s reporting, a single hospital system stands to gain like 800 million dollars a year for participating.

And you know, thinking about that — how much money hospitals were considering turning down — kind of puts into perspective Jared’s experience trying to get them to work with him. He wasn’t offering anybody 800 million dollars a year.I said to Jared: Seems like this would be hard to replicate elsewhere. Other states aren’t going to be able to put that kind of new federal money on the table. And Jared said:

Jared: I think before like, Oh, can we replicate it? I’m just like, how do we make it? How do we make it work in North Carolina?

Dan: That is: How to make sure when it gets implemented, that it really works? Remember, Jared said before: This all sounds amazing ON PAPER. We’ll have some of his caveats after the break. Plus the rest of Clara’s story.

An Arm and a Leg is a co-production of Public Road Productions and KFF Health News — that’s a nonprofit newsroom covering health issues in America. KFF’s reporters do amazing work — you just heard one of them breaking down how North Carolina put that deal together. I’m honored to work with them.

Jared loves the idea behind North Carolina’s initiative on charity care: Hospitals have to screen people while they’re on site, and let them know before they leave the hospital what kind of help they may be eligible for.

Jared: Making sure that a patient knows what is available to them before they leave is very powerful. , like, that’s where the responsibility should be. Um, but how do you do it? And what happens if you don’t? Right?

Dan: In other words, Jared says, the devil is in implementation, and in systems of accountability. He’s seen what happens when those systems are pourous.

Jared: In Oregon, they had that law that was like, Oh, you can’t sue patients without first checking to see if they’re eligible for charity care. . And then you find all these people that are being sued that were never screened.

Dan: Yeah, Oregonpassed a law in 2019 that required hospitals to evaluate patients for charity care before they could be sued over a bill. Jared’s colleague Eli Rushbanks analyzed a sample of hospital-bill lawsuits in one county. He could only see patients income in a few of them– but in almost half of those, that income was definitely low enough that the debt shouldve been forgiven.

He also took a big-picture look: In the years after the law took effect, two thirds of hospitals gave out LESS charity care than they had given before. Probably not what lawmakers had hoped for.

Hospitals in North Carolina will have two years to fully implement the screening requirement, called “presumptive eligibility.”

Some hospitals around the country already use automated systems for this: They check your credit, pull other data. Some of them use AI.

Jared says he’s seen some hospitals over-rely on the tech.

Jared: Some hospitals that are using presumptive eligibility tools will use that as a way to say, Oh, we already screened you. You can’t apply, but the patient is sitting there going, well, I’m eligible.

Your tool must have got it wrong. Cause these things are not a hundred percent accurate, or think of something like this, you lose your job, or maybe you’re at the hospital because you just gave birth to another human. So now you’re a household of four. It’s a four instead of three.

And obviously the presumptive eligibility tool isn’t going to be able to know that and calculate that. So if you go to the hospital and say, now I want to apply and they say, well, you don’t get to apply because we already screened you and you’re not eligible. That’s bullshit.

Dan: So, as North Carolina hospitals bring their systems online, Jared wants to push for a process where patients can appeal a machine-made decision. Jared: I’d love to be able to test that

how does that impact how many people are getting charity care and that 14 billion?

Dan: What do you think is your best shot for the next year of kind of moving towards 14 billion?

Jared: We are trying to figure that out. Um, obviously the election will play into that, but I think that if I had to guess where we would land, um, I think that we will double down on our patient advocacy work.

Dan: Jared says theyll definitely also continue to work with advocates and officials on policy proposals. But

Jared: The only reason anyone cares about what we have to say about policy is because we know what the patient experiences. So I think that if the, the more people we help, the more opportunity we will have to push policies forward that we want to see happen

Dan: So, this is a good place to note: If you or anybody you know has a hospital bill thats scaring you, Dollar For is a great first stop. Well have a link to their site wherever youre listening to this. Theyve got a tool that can help you quickly figure out if you might qualify for charity care from your hospital. Plus tons of how-tos. And theyve got dedicated staff to help you if you get stuck.

And we just heard Jared say theyre not backing away from that work, even as they aim to influence policy.

About policy Jared does have one other thought about their work in that area

Jared: We think that we’re going to get a little bit more feisty, uh, moving forward. So I’m, I’m excited about that.

Dan: I talked with Jared less than a week after the election. We didn’t know yet which party would take the House of Representatives, and of course there’s still a LOT we don’t know about what things look like from here. Jared had just one prediction.

Jared: I think we’re going to be needed, you know, that much more.

Dan: I think we’re all gonna need each other more than ever. Which is why I’m pleased to bring us back to Clara’s story from New York.

You might remember: Her family had three hospital adventures in the space of a year.

The first one, where her husband broke his ankle, got her started. The bill was eighteen hundred dollars, after insurance. A LOT for their family. But she had a few things going for her.

One, she knew charity care existed. Not because the hospital mentioned it.

Clara: No, I know about it from an arm and a leg,

Dan: And two, she had the skills. Because by training, she’s a librarian. And you may already know this but people come to libraries looking for a lot more than just books.

Clara: People all the time, will come in and bring in a form or need help navigating different systems and, and even just looking and trying to see where to start.

Dan: So, she went and found her hospital’s financial assistance policy online. Saw that her family met their income requirements. Found the form. Submitted it. Got offered a discount… that still left her family on the hook for more than they could comfortably pay.

And decided to see if she could ask for more. Was there an appeals process? There was.

But she didn’t find all of the information she needed online. The process wasn’t quick.

Clara: A lot of phone tag. And I don’t know if the bill pay phone lines are staffed better than the financial aid phone lines. But, you know, you get an answering machine a lot. You have to call back. The person doesn’t remember you. They’re not able to link your account.

All the things that I just feel like they’re really greasing the wheels of the paying for the bill option, but actually not making it especially accessible to do the financial aid and appeal process.

Dan: Clara hung in there. Heres what she told my colleague Claire Davenport.

Clara: Being a listener of the podcast, I feel like I’m part of a community of people who are sort of maneuvering through the crazy healthcare system. And I do kind of have Dan’s voice in my head, like, this is nuts. This is not your fault. This is crazy and not right.

Dan: Also, when she was angling for more help on her husband’s ER bill, she knew anything she learned could come in handy: She was due to give birth at the same hospital pretty soon.

Her persistence paid off. In the end, the hospital reduced that 1800 dollar bill to just 500 dollars.

Two weeks later, Isaac was born. And spent an extra day in the NICU. That, plus the late-night fever that sent them to the ER left Clara’s family on the hook for about 6500 dollars.

Clara used what she’d learned the first time through as a playbook. Apply, then appeal to ask for more help. She says that made it a little simpler. But not simple, and not quick.

Isaac was born in November 2023. His ER visit was in April 2024. When Clara talked with our producer in early August 2024, she was still waiting to hear the hospital’s decision about her appeal. Was it gonna be approved?

Clara: In the event that it’s not, I think we just put it on like the longest payment plan we can. Maybe we would ask family for help.

Dan: Update: A few days after that conversation, the hospital said yes to Clara’s appeal. Her new total, 650 dollars. About a tenth of that initial amount.

Which, yes, is a nice story for Clara and her family. But the reason I’m so pleased to share her story is this:

Clara: Actually, I made a template that you can let your listeners use for making an appeal letter. I’ll share it with you.

Dan: Clara thought it might be useful because part of the application and appeal process — not all of it was just facts and figures and pay stubs. There was also an opportunity to write a letter. Which opened up questions.

Clara: I feel like It’s not totally clear what you’re supposed to put in the letter and who you’re appealing to and how emotional you’re supposed to make it versus how technical

Dan: Here’s how she approached it.

Clara: I was trying to think about if I was reading the letter, what would help paint the picture of this bill in context of everything else. trying to put myself in their shoes, reading it, what would be useful t kind of add more depth to our story than just the bill. And then also I just tried to be really grateful and express authentic gratitude for the great care we received.

Dan: She also included a realistic estimate of what her family could actually pay. Which the hospital ended up agreeing with.

And yes, Clara shared that template with us. We’ll post a link to it wherever you’re listening to this. Please copy and paste, and fill in the blanks, and please-tell us if it works for you.

A big lesson here is, don’t take no for a final answer. Don’t take “We’ll help you this much” for a final answer. Clara discovered one other thing: Don’t give up if it looks like you may have missed a deadline. She missed one.

Clara: So I called them and said, I’m really worried. ” I didn’t send it in time. It might be off by a couple days. Is this going to be a huge problem? And they said, No, don’t worry about it.

It’s totally fine. Just send it. So I’m thinking, Okay, wait. There are so many people who are going to get cut off or get their bill and realize, Oh, well, I totally missed the window. So let’s go for the payment plan option. When actually,

Dan: If you’ve got the chutzpah, and the time, and the patience to make the next call and ask… you may get a different answer.

It sucks that it’s this hard. But I appreciate every clue that it’s not impossible. And I appreciate Clara sharing her story — and her template with us.

I told Jared about it.

Jared: Yeah, that’s amazing. I mean, I love, uh, it’s so funny. it’s just the idea of you have this patient that is going through all of this stuff and is so busy trying to focus on their own health, do their own thing, and they’re out here making templates so that other people can , you know, jump through the same hoops because we know We’re all going to have to jump through the hoops, uh, is just, man, how frustrating is that?

But how amazing is it that you have, you have built a community of people that are, you know, willing to, uh, take those kind of crappy, not kind of, very terrible experiences and, um, and turn it into something that is helpful for other people. I think that’s amazing.

Dan: Me too! So this is where I ask you to help keep a good thing going. We’ve got so much to do in 2025, and your donations have always been our biggest source of support. After the credits of this episode, youll hear the names of some folks who have pitched in just in the last few weeks.

And this is The Time to help us build. The place to go is arm and a leg show dot com, slash, support.

That’s arm and a leg show dot com, slash, support .

We’ll have a link wherever you’re listening.

Thank you so much for pitching in if you can.

We’ll be back with a brand new episode in a few weeks.

Till then, take care of yourself.

This episode of An Arm and a Leg was produced by Claire Davenport and me, Dan Weissmann, with help from Emily Pisacreta — and edited by Ellen Weiss.

Adam Raymonda is our audio wizard. Our music is by Dave Weiner and Blue Dot Sessions. Gabrielle Healy is our managing editor for audience. Bea Bosco is our consulting director of operations.

Lynne Johnson is our operations manager.

An Arm and a Leg is produced in partnership with KFF Health News. That’s a national newsroom producing in-depth journalism about health issues in America and a core program at KFF, an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.

Zach Dyer is senior audio producer at KFF Health News. He’s editorial liaison to this show.

And thanks to the Institute for Nonprofit News for serving as our fiscal sponsor. They allow us to accept tax-exempt donations. You can learn more about INN at INN.org.

Finally, thank you to everybody who supports this show financially.

An Arm and a Leg is a co-production of KFF Health News and Public Road Productions.

To keep in touch with An Arm and a Leg, subscribe to its newsletters. You can also follow the show on Facebook and the social platform X. And if youve got stories to tell about the health care system, the producers would love to hear from you.

To hear all KFF Health News podcasts, click here.

And subscribe to “An Arm and a Leg” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email Print Related Topics Health Care Costs Multimedia An Arm and a Leg Podcasts Contact Us Submit a Story Tip

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A famous dad, the perfect swing and elite Fortnite skills: Meet MLB’s most fascinating hitter

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A famous dad, the perfect swing and elite Fortnite skills: Meet MLB's most fascinating hitter

Warning: What you’re about to read is Jacob Wilson‘s opinion. He is a professional baseball player — a very good one — and not a medical expert, but there are some things he is convinced are true, and this is one of them.

The 23-year-old Wilson, the Athletics’ wunderkind shortstop, is wise enough to understand that the sort of success he has found on the baseball field — a .347 batting average and a near-certain invitation to the All-Star Game coming — comes from a multitude of areas. He is the son of a longtime big leaguer, so certainly genetics helped, and he works relentlessly at his craft, which goes a long way. But the special sauce that built the American League Rookie of the Year favorite, he believes, included a secret ingredient.

Fortnite.

“Kids are going to love this one. Parents are going to hate me,” Wilson said. “I am a big believer in video games. It’s fast decision-making strategy. I think that gets me ready for the game, because when you’re in the box, you have to process a lot. So there’s some days where I’ll wake up and I’ll play video games and then I’ll go to the field, and I’ll have a good day. Some days I won’t play and don’t see the ball well. I think it really helps me train kind of the decision-making that I have to make six, seven hours later at the baseball field.”

Yes, one of the best hitters in the major leagues, a contact maven who strikes out with the infrequency of Tony Gwynn, swears that he’s as good as he is at a kid’s game because of his aptitude at another kid’s game. After Wilson wakes up, he deploys to his living room and parks in a chair. On the table in front of him sit a PC and a controller. He logs in to Fortnite — the 8-year-old game still played by millions every day — hops on the Battle Bus and systematically disposes of those with the misfortune of sharing a map with him.

“If we play a game with me and him and guys we know and you kill him once, you’re like, ‘That’s a good day,'” A’s infielder Max Muncy said. “You could play 50 rounds. Just once is good.”

Muncy has known of Wilson’s Fortnite exploits since they were teammates at Thousand Oaks (California) High, where Wilson’s father, former Pittsburgh shortstop Jack Wilson, coached. Back then, Jack actually questioned whether the game was interfering with Jacob’s baseball growth — though he understood his son’s reasoning. Over his 12-year big league career, Jack earned a reputation as one of the best pingpong players in the major leagues. It was pure reaction, not unlike hitting, and he complemented his pregame work in the batting cage with the brain training found in a paddle and hollow ball.

He saw the same opportunity in video games for his son — with a caveat.

“I do believe in the hand-eye coordination that video games give — as long as you do your homework,” Jack said. “Kids, if you’re reading, do your homework.”

The Wilsons are not alone in their belief that unconventional methods off the field can lead to success on it. Studies back up the suggestion that video games can be beneficial for brain activity. And considering the recognition being lavished on Jacob Wilson — he is more than a quarter-million votes ahead of Kansas City star Bobby Witt Jr. in All-Star balloting to be the American League’s starting shortstop — the benefits can be pronounced.

Of course, dropping into Anarchy Acres does not a big league hitter make. The story of Wilson’s ascent actually starts in his backyard, where he spent countless hours figuring out how to thrive in a game that simply isn’t built for hitters like him anymore.


Heaven for the Wilson family is a regulation-sized turfed infield with a FungoMan ground ball machine, a fence covered with famous retired numbers and stadium logos, a full dugout on the third-base side — and a grill stationed in center field in case someone gets hungry. The backyard of the family’s home is a testament to form and function, and it’s where Jacob learned how to be — and how not to be — like his father.

“It was a place built for guys who just love the grind of wanting to get better every day,” Jack said.

Jack’s bat was never as adept as his glove, and to last a dozen years in the big leagues, he needed countless reps to keep his fielding at a level that, according to Baseball-Reference, produced the fifth-most defensive wins above replacement this century, behind only Andrelton Simmons, Yadier Molina, Adrian Beltre and Kevin Kiermaier.

“You know that idea about being able to write a letter to your former self on what would you tell yourself now?” Jack said. “I get to do that with Jake. And I said, ‘You know, this is the way I hit. I don’t want you to hit like this.’ Because there were so many things I wish I could have done differently. If I were to build a perfect hitter, what would I do?”

He started with Miguel Cabrera. Wilson always admired how tall he stood in the batter’s box before sinking into his legs. Then it was Mike Trout. The simplicity of his swing has always been a marvel, but in particular Wilson appreciated the speed at which he loads his hands, allowing Trout to be on time even for 100 mph fastballs. The final lesson was Albert Pujols’ bat path, which was so flat and stayed in the zone for so long that it allowed him to sting the ball from foul pole to foul pole while maintaining strikeout numbers that were well below league average.

To hone that Voltron of a swing, a teenage Wilson would grip a custom wood bat with a 1½-inch barrel — an inch less than a standard big league barrel — and face his dad, who stood 45 feet away and ripped 85 mph fastballs and sliders using a tennis ball. If he didn’t catch the ball on the meat of the barrel, it would spin sideways, forcing him to learn to maneuver his bat with special dexterity.

The skinny bat made a regulation-sized model feel twice as big. When he took regular batting practice, Jacob always started by peppering the right side of the field on his first dozen swings. Even though Jacob was bigger than his father — at 6-foot-3, he is a comparatively imposing presence — Jack didn’t want him to fall into the trap of always trying to pull the ball. While that approach works for some hitters, Cabrera, Trout and Pujols embraced and embodied an all-fields approach.

By Wilson’s junior year in high school, the work started to pay off. Wilson didn’t strike out once all season. He didn’t punch out during his COVID-shortened senior season, either, then continued that trend at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, where his sophomore year he whiffed seven times in 275 plate appearances and his junior season had five punchouts in 217 times at the plate. Twice, he received a plaque from the NCAA for being the toughest hitter to strike out in college baseball.

The A’s took Wilson with the sixth pick in the loaded 2023 draft. Last year, he hit .433/.473/.668 with just 15 strikeouts in 226 plate appearances across three minor league levels and, just a year and 10 days after being drafted, he debuted in the big leagues.

In a world of launch angle and exit velocity, Wilson arrived in the majors wanting to be more like Luis Arráez and Nico Hoerner, contact artists nonpareil who value batting average and are allergic to strikeouts.

“I just take strikeouts so personally,” Wilson said. “It’s the one thing in this game that makes me more mad than anything. So I’ll go up there and I’ll swing at a pitch that’s maybe a couple inches off and take a base hit to right. So I think batting average definitely is a stat that should be seen and should matter for most hitters.”

Wilson’s swing is kinetic, with a wide-open stance that closes as he moves his legs and flaps his arms — a little Chicken Dance, a little Cabrera-Trout-Pujols. While he hasn’t always been this twitchy — “I’ve got to keep my muscles moving a little bit,” Wilson said — it works for him. He keeps the knob of the bat in the direction of the ball longer than most hitters, reminding himself to “stay inside the baseball,” a lesson preached ad nauseam by Jack. Aiming to strike the inside of the ball, Jacob said, keeps him from rolling over it. He lives by the old axiom “good hitters get jammed” and doesn’t shy away from flipping a duck snort between the infield and outfield.

The approach has served him well. After starting the year in the No. 9 hole, Wilson has hit first or second every game since May 7. Only Arráez has a lower strikeout rate than Wilson’s 6.8% — and Wilson has nine home runs compared with Arráez’s one. Of all the strikeout-averse hitters in the game, the one with a line most comparable to Wilson’s.347/.388/.487 is Cleveland third baseman Jose Ramirez, who is primed to play in his seventh All-Star Game this season.

“It’s not even his hits,” said Nick Kurtz, the A’s first baseman and fellow rookie. “I’ve seen multiple times where there’s a sinker up and in that was going to hit him, and he hit it to second base. Sometimes they’re a hit, sometimes they’re not. Every time, though, I’m like, ‘How the hell did he do that?’ Being able to touch it, not break your bat and go the other way with it? I’m at a loss for words.”


On April 5 at 11:13 p.m., Jack Wilson’s phone dinged. He had texted his son to congratulate him on a good team win by the A’s. Jacob didn’t want to hear it. He was mad. He had gone 1-for-4 with a two-run double, but that wasn’t good enough.

“I’m not a .250 hitter,” Jacob texted.

Jack laughed. He batted .265 in his career. It was enough to earn him more than $40 million playing. His son wants to be better — not because he’s greedy but because he’s capable of it.

“That’s a good thought process,” Jack said. “Because when I was a rookie and I got a hit, I was pumped. I always tell him, ‘Man, hitting is freaking hard.’ It’s just not going to be every day where your swing is on point and you match up. It’s just the way it is. So this has been a real learning experience. And it will be for a long time. The more he learns now, the better off he is in the future and hopefully spends a long time as an Athletic.”

The A’s are counting on their star shortstop as a linchpin of their impressive offensive core. Wilson is the fulcrum, Kurtz the powerhouse with a propensity for late-inning heroics. Designated hitter Brent Rooker and outfielder Lawrence Butler are both sluggers locked up to long-term deals. First baseman Tyler Soderstrom and catcher Shea Langeliers provide additional home run thump. Denzel Clarke is going to win multiple Gold Gloves in center field. If they can build a pitching staff to match, the team scheduled to move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season will be among the most exciting in baseball.

And it all starts with the kid who is definitely not a .250 hitter and definitely does take strikeouts personally.

“I mean, I’ve studied his swing,” Muncy said. “There’s things that he does so well that other guys don’t do that leads to that. And I think one of the things is probably just his mentality. He has always thought he could put it in play. I don’t think there’s ever been a guy where he is like, ‘I can’t put it in play.’ When you have that supplemental edge — I can put it in play no matter what — that helps.”

Every edge helps, be it bat-to-ball skills, burgeoning power or the ability to no-scope someone from 300 meters. Wilson has no plans to abandon his Fortnite reps. It’s part of his training now, and even if it doesn’t work for everyone, he sees Victory Royales leading to victories for the A’s.

“Everybody has their own approach and everybody’s here for a reason,” Wilson said. “This is the big leagues. Everybody is the best in the world at what they do.”

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Trade war: UK car exports to US halved in May ahead of truce

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Trade war: UK car exports to US halved in May ahead of truce

The extent of the harm inflicted on UK car exporters from US tariffs has been revealed, with shipments plunging by more than half last month according to industry figures.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said the number of UK-made cars heading across the Atlantic fell 55.4% during May following a decline of just under 3% the previous month.

The dramatic slowdown marked a reaction to the 25% tariffs imposed on imports by the Trump administration from 3 April amid the president’s “liberation day” trade war escalation which sparked chaos in global supply chains.

The move prompted Jaguar Land Rover – the biggest exporter of cars to the US from these shores – to suspend all shipments temporarily.

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April: Jobs fears as JLR halts US shipments

The US is the most important market for UK producers, in value terms, and was worth £9bn last year with the vast majority of those sales coming from luxury brands also including Bentley, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and Aston Martin.

Tariffs on UK-made cars imported into the US have since been reduced from 25% to 10% for up to 100,000 vehicles on an annual basis.

That was signed off by the president 10 days ago.

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While it spares UK producers from the worst, the US trade war does not represent the only challenge.

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Explained: The US-UK trade deal

The industry has been crying out for help to bolster its competitiveness and increase demand for new electric vehicles amid lacklustre interest, not just at home, but abroad too.

It has welcomed promised help with punitive energy costs through the government’s industrial strategy.

Wider SMMT figures showed car and commercial vehicle production fell for the fifth consecutive month in May.

It reported a 33% decline to just 49,810 vehicles and said it was the worst performance for May, when the COVID years were excluded, since 1949.

The industry body blamed continuing model changeovers, along with the impact of US tariffs.

The number of vehicles produced for the domestic market fell while shipments to the EU, which generally accounts for the biggest share of volumes, was down by 22.5%.

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Mike Hawes, the SMMT’s chief executive, said: “While 2025 has proved to be an incredibly challenging year for UK automotive production, there is the beginning of some optimism for the future.

“Confirmed trade deals with crucial markets, especially the US and a more positive relationship with the EU, as well as government strategies on industry and trade that recognise the critical role the sector plays in driving economic growth, should help recovery.

“With rapid implementation, particularly on the energy costs constraining our competitiveness, the UK can deliver the jobs, growth and decarbonisation that is desperately needed.”

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Post Office: Police identify seven suspects related to Horizon scandal

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Post Office: Police identify seven suspects related to Horizon scandal

Police investigating the Horizon Post Office scandal have now identified seven suspects, with more than 45 people classed as “persons of interest”.

A “scaled-up” national team of officers has been in place for over six months as part of Operation Olympos – dedicated to looking at crimes related to the Horizon Post Office scandal.

The number of suspects has increased to seven since before Christmas, as part of a UK-wide investigation involving 100 officers.

Four have now been interviewed under caution.

Hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongfully convicted of stealing after faulty computer software created false accounting shortfalls in Post Office branches between 1999 and 2015.

Commander Stephen Clayman, Gold Command for Operation Olympos, described a “huge shift” in terms of their investigation and “significant progress”.

Commander Stephen Clayman
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Commander Stephen Clayman

“We’ve got over four million documents that are going to rise to about six million documents,” he said, “but we’re beginning to methodically work through those and looking at individuals who are associated with certain prosecutions.”

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He described a “pool of about 45 people plus” classed as “persons of interest”, with that number “expected to grow”.

He added that officers have questioned “some” in the past and “more recently” and are looking at the offences of perverting the course of justice and perjury.

The “wider pool” of persons of interest is made up of Post Office investigators, lawyers, and “management” across Fujitsu and the Post Office.

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Post Office knew about faulty IT system

The team of officers will be identifying actions which could amount to criminal offences on both an individual and corporate basis.

Any decisions made on whether to charge will not happen until after the Post Office inquiry findings are “published and reviewed”.

The Operation Olympos officers are part of four teams – a London hub and three regional teams – who have been described as “highly motivated” across England and Wales.

Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are also helping.

Cmdr Clayman said that officers “will be building a robust case” to pass on to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Operation Olympos
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Officer working in one of the four Operation Olympos teams

He also added that, compared to the inquiry, his officers will have to “prove this to the criminal standard…a much, much higher standard”.

He described feeling “optimistic” and “confident” that the teams will have “some successful outcomes”, and said they are “working as hard and as quickly as (they) can”.

Teams are involved in what has been described as a “focused strategy which gets to the heart of the issues”.

Their investigations are being overseen by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Metropolitan Police.

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Victims have also been told that the police will not be reinvestigating every case but “taking a speculative look at cases” to focus on key people involved and evidence for prosecution.

Operation Olympos is also making use of special software to help process the amount of evidence to sift through material in relation to key events and identified cases.

Of the four suspects interviewed under caution, two were questioned in late 2021, one in late 2024 and the most recent in early 2025.

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