Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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A federal audit says HumanaChoice was overpaid $130.9 million on diagnoses its own records did not support
A federal watchdog has concluded that HumanaChoice, a Medicare Advantage plan run by Humana, Inc. under contract H5216, collected government payments tied to diagnosis codes that patients’ own medical records did not back up. The finding comes from a compliance audit covering payment years 2020 and 2021, built on a sample of enrollee records that…
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Diesel hit $6.285 a gallon last week, the highest in the federal price record that began in 1994
The federal government’s weekly survey of diesel pump prices recorded $6.285 a gallon for the week ending September 14, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices report. That is the highest figure the agency has published since the series began in March 1994, and it followed a jump of…
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The government is funded only through December 11 under the stopgap signed September 2
A stopgap spending law is keeping the federal government’s discretionary agencies funded at current levels through December 11, following months of on-and-off funding fights earlier in 2026. The measure, H.R. 6500, the “Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027,” was signed into law on September 2, 2026, after clearing the House 370-48 and the Senate 90-6.…
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More than a million people dropped exchange coverage after the extra premium help expired
Enrollment in Affordable Care Act marketplace plans fell by more than a million sign-ups for 2026, the sharpest one-year drop since the marketplaces opened, after enhanced premium tax credits expired at the end of 2025 and were not renewed. That figure describes people who picked a plan during open enrollment, not the smaller number who…
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The promised $500 health exchange refunds go only to enrollees who received no premium help
A one-time payment of $500 is headed toward roughly a million Affordable Care Act enrollees, according to a White House fact sheet published September 10, 2026. The offer sounds broad enough to help any marketplace shopper frustrated by rising premiums, but the eligibility line drawn inside the announcement narrows it sharply. Only enrollees in the…
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More than half of everything the United States imports now carries a new tariff
A new tally from the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax policy research group, finds that products now subject to an active tariff make up a majority of everything the United States buys from other countries. The finding follows a year in which tariff policy shifted more than fifty times, including a Supreme Court ruling that…
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A new executive order tells the EPA to push seven states to repeal stormwater fees, but it cancels no one’s bill
President Trump signed an executive order on September 16 that revokes a 2009 directive tied to Chesapeake Bay cleanup and instructs the Environmental Protection Agency to press seven watershed jurisdictions on their local stormwater fees. The order itself describes those charges, often called rain taxes, as imposing hundreds of dollars a year in costs on…
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Farmers are getting 17.1 percent more for wheat this year and 6.3 percent less for milk
Farmers are getting paid more for one crop and less for another this year, and the gap between those two numbers says more about how food actually gets priced than either figure does on its own. Wheat growers are watching their return climb by double digits. Dairy producers are watching theirs slide for a second…
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Prescription drug prices did not move at all in August
The federal government’s monthly scorecard on retail prices logged no change at all for prescription drugs in August. Hospital care and physician visits were flat too, even as the broader cost of medical care in the United States kept drifting down on paper. For a household staring at a pharmacy receipt that moved anyway, the…
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Colorado approved an 8.6 percent natural gas increase that takes effect October 6, three weeks before the cold
Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission approved a settlement on September 4 that raises Xcel Energy’s natural gas rates starting October 6, even after cutting the utility’s original request by more than a third. Residential customers will see their monthly bill climb 8.6 percent, or $5.16, while small businesses take on a 9.2 percent increase of $22.76.…