Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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Two states have published final 2027 health insurance decisions, at 21.6 and 17.2 percent
Oregon’s insurance regulator locked in a 21.6 percent average rate increase for its individual health insurance market on August 18. Delaware’s regulator followed on September 4, approving a 17.2 percent increase for its largest marketplace insurer. Both numbers are final decisions, not the opening asks insurance companies filed months ago. If you buy your own…
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The VA is telling home loan borrowers who lost a job that foreclosure is not automatic
A veteran who loses a job and falls behind on a VA-backed mortgage does not automatically lose the house — that is the message the Department of Veterans Affairs is putting directly in front of borrowers this month. VA says a missed payment starts a process a homeowner can still work through, not an ending.…
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USDA still has not written the food stamp work rules states are already enforcing
A caseworker in Ohio has to decide this week whether a 61-year-old grocery clerk who lost her hours keeps her food assistance past three months. The law says she now counts as an able-bodied adult without dependents. The federal guidance on exactly how to screen her for an exception does not exist yet. A Law…
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Food stamp households paying high rent can shelter up to $769 a month from the benefit math on October 1
A single-parent household in Ohio paying $1,400 a month in rent and utilities looks, on paper, like it should get almost nothing in food stamps once its income is counted. Starting October 1, the math changes: the government will let that household subtract up to $769 of its housing costs before benefits are calculated, the…
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Social Security just retired a 36-year-old rule on what family rent does to an SSI check
An SSI recipient renting a converted garage apartment from her adult son pays him $380 a month. Whether that arrangement quietly shrinks her monthly check has depended, for 36 years, on a legal technicality most families renting to or from a relative never knew existed: which of the country’s federal appeals circuits they happened to…
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HealthCare.gov still lists January 15 as the last day to enroll, whatever the December 15 warnings say
Marcus Webb’s insurance broker in Toledo has fielded the same panicked phone call four times this week: a client who saw a headline saying the government shrank Open Enrollment down to December 15 this year, and wanted to lock in a plan before it was “too late.” It isn’t too late. HealthCare.gov’s own site, checked…
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Insurers in all 50 states are asking for a median 15 percent increase on marketplace plans next year
If you buy your own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, the letter that lands in your mailbox this fall is likely to carry a bigger number than last year’s. Insurers covering every state and Washington, D.C. have filed paperwork asking regulators to approve a median premium increase of 15 percent for 2027.…
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The limit on repaying too much health insurance subsidy is gone for the tax year now underway
Every year, millions of people who buy health coverage through the ACA marketplace estimate their income months before they actually earn it, then find out at tax time whether the subsidy checks sent to their insurance company all year matched reality. Through 2025, if that estimate came in too low and the subsidy paid out…
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Treasury finalized the car loan interest deduction, and it only covers vehicles assembled in the United States
A driver who buys a Toyota Camry built in Georgetown, Kentucky can now count the loan interest toward a $10,000 federal tax deduction. A driver who buys the same Camry trim built in Aichi, Japan cannot — same price, same interest rate, same monthly payment. That is the line Treasury and the IRS drew on…
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Cigna is leaving the individual insurance marketplace in 11 states on January 1, and 369,000 people must repick
Cigna sold you an individual health plan this year in one of 11 states. Come January 1, 2027, that plan won’t exist. Roughly 369,000 people are in this position right now, and most of them don’t know it yet, because the decision was made back in April during a routine earnings call, not a headline…
