Main Street Dollars

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Nothing has happened to H.R. 9768 since the afternoon it was filed. The official record shows three actions, all stamped July 16, 2026: introduced in the House, introduced in the House again as the clerk logs it, and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means. No hearing, no markup, no vote, and no cosponsors…

The extra Obamacare subsidies expired, and the 2027 out-of-pocket ceiling rises to $12,000

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in Rule Changes

A pair of temporary clauses stopped applying on the last day of 2025, and Congress has not written anything to take their place. The live text of the statute still carries both of them, still labeled as running only through 2025, with no later amendment attached. What replaced them is the original 2010 subsidy structure,…

Medicare is adding to the list of equipment that needs a doctor’s order before delivery on October 28

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The document at the center of this change is an ordinary one: a signed written order that has to reach the equipment supplier before the item is delivered, supported by a face-to-face visit with the treating practitioner in the six months before that order was written. On October 28, 2026, twenty-two more equipment codes come…

Humana expects to win back about 40 percent of the 600,000 members losing their Medicare Advantage plans

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Six hundred thousand is the figure Humana attached to its 2027 Medicare Advantage plan exits, roughly 8 percent of the nearly 7.2 million people it covers in the program. A second number sits underneath it and has drawn far less attention. The company has told investors it anticipates recapturing roughly 40 percent of that group…

No bill to untax Social Security has moved since 2025, and what seniors got instead is a $6,000 deduction

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in Credits & Deductions

The federal income tax on Social Security benefits has not been repealed, reduced, or scheduled for a vote. Three separate bills in the current Congress would end it outright, and all three are sitting exactly where they were filed, in the committees that received them, with no recorded action since 2025. What did become law…

One of the three months that sets Social Security’s 2027 raise is in, and it points to 3.1 percent

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in Social Security

327.104 is the July 2026 reading of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, the index the Social Security Act names as the measure that sets the annual raise. It is one of three monthly numbers that will decide the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment, and at the moment it is the only…

Medicaid will cap protected home equity at $1 million in 2028

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in Government Programs

One million dollars is the ceiling Congress has placed on the home equity a state may protect when it decides whether Medicaid will pay for a person’s nursing facility care. The figure takes hold on January 1, 2028. Above it, equity in an ordinary house stops being something any state has the discretion to shelter,…

$166 billion in tariffs is being refunded with interest, and the checks go to importers, not shoppers

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in Refunds

On April 30, 2026, the federal government’s customs-duty receipts for the fiscal year stood at $188.6 billion. Three months later the same line in the Treasury’s books read $154.5 billion. That roughly $34 billion swing is not a collapse in imports or a bookkeeping quirk. It is a refund program running in reverse through the…

UnitedHealthcare says it is no longer negotiating, and University of Miami hospitals leave its Medicare Advantage network on January 1

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UnitedHealthcare ended 14 months of contract talks with the University of Miami Health System on July 31 by signing a multi-year agreement that left one group of patients outside it. The deal secured in-network access at UHealth for people covered through employer plans, Affordable Care Act marketplace plans and Florida Medicaid. A different contract governs…

Medicare’s drug deductible jumps to $700 in January, with a $2,400 out-of-pocket cap

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