Category: Government Programs
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Roughly 15 percent of Medicaid’s expansion population is expected to drop off in the years after the work rule starts.
Buried inside the same Medicaid work requirement taking effect January 1, 2027, is a number that has less to do with whether people are working and more to do with whether they can keep up with the paperwork. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ own regulatory analysis, published alongside the rule it issued this…
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Guam’s food stamp maximum for a family of four is $1,507, almost $500 above the mainland figure.
A family of four applying for SNAP in Guam qualifies for a bigger maximum monthly benefit than an identical family in the 48 contiguous states, and the gap is substantial: $1,507 a month versus $1,023, under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s newest cost-of-living update. That’s a difference of $484, or roughly $5,800 over a full…
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Alaska, Hawaii and Guam all get bigger food stamp shelter deductions than the mainland.
Every SNAP household’s food benefit is calculated off net income, and one of the biggest deductions in that math is for shelter costs that eat up more than half a household’s income after other deductions are applied. Starting October 1, 2026, the cap on that deduction is rising across the board under USDA’s newest cost-of-living…
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The food stamp savings cap holds at $3,000 for most households even as the limit for older and disabled households rises to $4,750.
Starting October 1, 2026, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will phase in its annual round of cost-of-living adjustments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and one figure in the package is staying exactly where it has been for years: the resource limit for most households applying for food assistance holds at $3,000. Households with a…
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An elderly or disabled two-person household counted on its own clears the food stamp screen at $2,976.
When an elderly or disabled person lives with relatives or roommates but genuinely cannot buy and cook food with them because of a permanent disability, federal rules let that person and their spouse apply for SNAP as their own household, separate from everyone else in the home. Whether that split is allowed depends on how…
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Food stamp households of nine to 17 add $225 per person.
Add a ninth person to a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program household and, starting October 1, 2026, the math changes in a way most coverage of the annual SNAP increase skips entirely: the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s fiscal year 2027 update sets a flat $225 add-on to the maximum monthly allotment for every additional person from…
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A food stamp household of six or more collects a $308 standard deduction in the new benefit year, $91 above what the smallest households get.
A Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program household of six or more people will be able to subtract $308 from its income before the government calculates its monthly food benefit once the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s fiscal year 2027 cost-of-living adjustment takes effect on October 1, 2026. A household of one, two or three people only gets…
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The new drug deals move Medicaid and cash-register prices, and analysts say private insurance and Medicare bills barely budge.
The Trump administration’s latest round of most-favored-nation drug pricing deals, announced August 31, 2026, brought the number of participating manufacturers to 26. The agreements lower what state Medicaid programs pay for brand-name drugs from those companies, and they lower list prices for patients buying directly through the federal TrumpRx website. But read the fine print…
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Medicaid’s new work test will cover about 18.5 million people, and the budget office expects roughly 5.2 million of them to lose coverage.
Starting January 1, 2027, millions of adults who get Medicaid through the program’s expansion group will have to prove they are working, training, volunteering or in school for at least 80 hours a month to keep their coverage. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the requirement will touch about 18.5 million people nationwide, and…
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Twenty-six drugmakers have now agreed to charge Medicaid the lower prices Europe pays, covering 89 percent of the branded drug market.
The Trump administration says 26 pharmaceutical manufacturers have now agreed to sell drugs to state Medicaid programs at the same reduced prices those companies already charge buyers in other wealthy countries. The latest round, announced August 31, 2026, added nine more drugmakers to the list and pushed the share of the U.S. branded prescription drug…
