Main Street Dollars

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Premiums for standalone Medicare Part D drug plans are heading up next year, though by less than the cost of a lunch. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services projects the total average monthly premium for stand-alone prescription drug plans to rise by less than $1, from $35.09 in 2026 to $36 in 2027. The…

Who qualifies for Medicare premium help next year? The income limits are still missing from Medicare’s page

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Medicare Savings Programs pay some or all of the Part B premium for people with limited income, and the page that sets out who qualifies has not moved to 2027. As of October 2, medicare.gov’s Medicare Savings Programs page still states monthly income and resource limits for 2026. The year-ahead question, who might qualify when…

Medicare is scrapping the mid-year notice about unused Advantage benefits

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One letter Medicare Advantage members have been entitled to receive partway through the year, the reminder about supplemental benefits they have not used, is being dropped. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says it is rescinding the requirement for plans to send mid-year notices about unused supplemental benefits, a change that sits in the…

Orphan drugs, plasma products and gene therapies are excluded from Medicare’s new drug model

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Four groups of Part B products fall outside Medicare’s new GLOBE drug payment model: biosimilars and their reference biologicals once a biosimilar is on the U.S. market, orphan-only drugs, plasma-derived products, and certain cell and gene therapies. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services set out the carve-outs when it finalized the model on September…

A new federal tax credit worth up to $1,700, or $3,400 for a couple, starts in January in the states that opted in

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in Credits & Deductions

A taxpayer who gives cash to an approved scholarship fund in 2027 could trim a federal tax bill by up to $1,700, or by up to $3,400 for a married couple filing jointly, under a new credit that Treasury and the IRS began detailing on October 1. The catch is geographic: the credit applies only…

Amazon Prime refunds are going out automatically and expire 60 days after they are issued

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in Settlements & Claims

Nobody has to file anything to receive an Amazon Prime refund from the Federal Trade Commission’s settlement with Amazon, but a payment that arrives unexpectedly comes with a short fuse: it expires 60 days after the date it is issued. The FTC’s refund page says Amazon has already issued more than $845 million to eligible…

Both tariff rebate bills in Congress are sitting still: one has not moved since December 17, the other since September 17

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in Rule Changes

No tariff rebate payment exists in federal law, and the two House bills that carry the idea have gone nowhere since being introduced. One, H.R.6781, was referred to a committee on December 17, 2025 and has recorded nothing newer. The other, H.R.10494, was introduced and referred on September 17, 2026, and its official record shows…

Medicare Advantage flex cards will stop working on items the plan does not cover

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Debit cards that Medicare Advantage plans load with supplemental-benefit dollars are about to get a gatekeeper at the register. Starting with contract year 2027, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requires those cards to check each purchase against what the plan actually covers, so a swipe on an item outside the benefit should not…

Twenty-six drugmakers covering 89% of the branded market agreed to lower Medicaid prices in all 50 states

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in Government Programs

The White House says 26 pharmaceutical manufacturers have signed agreements covering 89 percent of the branded drug market, and that the deals will cut what all 50 state Medicaid programs pay for expensive brand-name drugs. What the announcement does not say is when any lower price takes effect, which drugs get cheaper or by how…

The Social Security raise that sets January checks has not been announced yet, and it gates the VA rate tables too

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