Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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Social Security stopped some beneficiaries’ checks before their appeal rights had expired, its inspector general found
Social Security’s administrative sanctions program exists to punish people who lie to get benefits, not to cut off a legitimate check before someone has had a real chance to fight it. A new audit from the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General found the agency got that balance wrong far more often than…
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Medicare must publish negotiated prices on 15 more drugs by November 30, and doctor-administered drugs are in for the first time
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has a hard date circled on its calendar: November 30, 2026. By then, the agency must publish the negotiated prices it reaches with drug companies over 15 more high-cost medications, the third round of price negotiations created by the Inflation Reduction Act. For the first time, the list…
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The extra Affordable Care Act subsidies expired at the end of 2025, not at the end of this year
A wave of health insurance renewal notices is landing this fall with premiums well above what many households paid a year ago, and the reason traces back to a decision that already took effect, not one still pending. The extra financial help that had been holding down Affordable Care Act marketplace premiums since 2021 lapsed…
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An Indiana insurance agent drew 70 months for writing more than 2,000 life insurance policies in other people’s names
A federal judge in Hammond, Indiana, sentenced a longtime local insurance agent to nearly six years in prison this month for building a fraud scheme on top of his own clients’ identities. Thomas J. Lemmen, 51, of Schererville, held a state insurance license for more than a decade before prosecutors say he used it to…
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Anyone whose federal refund cannot be deposited has 30 days to add a bank account or wait six weeks
More than 1.9 million taxpayers have opened a letter this filing season telling them their refund is ready but the IRS could not send it. The letter, Notice CP53E, sets an exact number of days to fix the problem before the refund defaults to the payment method the agency is trying to eliminate entirely: a…
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Paul Richard Randall drew 30 years and owes $178,746,556.22 for billing California’s Medicaid program for pain cream and vitamins
A federal court sentenced Paul Richard Randall, 67, of Orange, California, to 30 years in federal prison this month for running a pharmacy billing scheme that drained nearly $270 million from Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program. Over an eleven-month stretch, Randall’s operation billed the program for prescription pain creams and an over-the-counter vitamin dressed up as…
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Two in five food stamp applications in Georgia missed the legal deadline last year
More than a third of the people who applied for food assistance in Georgia last year waited longer than federal law allows before the state told them whether they would get help. According to new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Administration, Georgia processed just 61.24% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program…
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The Internal Revenue Service has sent 1.9 million people a notice saying their refund could not be deposited
A federal watchdog report released this summer shows the Internal Revenue Service has already sent more than 1.9 million notices telling taxpayers their refund could not be direct-deposited as filed. The notices, known as CP53E, are the direct result of a 2025 executive order that phased out paper federal refund checks starting last fall. For…
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A 75-year-old founder is charged with taking $450 million from 13,000 investors
A federal grand jury indictment unsealed in Manhattan this month accuses the founder of a “pre-IPO” investment platform of running a five-year pricing scheme that drew more than $450 million from thousands of ordinary investors. The case, brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, lays out in detail how…
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Two executives are charged with keeping the 401(k) money they withheld from workers’ paychecks
Two founders of a Tampa-based real estate investment company have been indicted on federal charges accusing them of pocketing retirement and health-insurance money that had already been deducted from their own employees’ paychecks. Federal prosecutors say the payroll deductions kept coming out of workers’ pay, but the money stopped reaching the 401(k) plan and the…