Main Street Dollars

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A debt collector calling about an old credit card cannot reach into a retiree’s Social Security check. A county enforcing a child-support order sometimes can. The gap between those two answers surprises a lot of people, and it matters enormously for anyone living on a fixed benefit who is also facing a debt. Social Security…

The spousal-only “restricted application” is gone unless you were born before 1954

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in Social Security

For years, a small but powerful Social Security strategy let certain married retirees collect a check from their spouse’s record while their own benefit quietly grew larger in the background. A 2015 law shut that door for almost everyone. Today it survives for only one narrow group: people born before January 2, 1954. Anyone born…

Social Security pays a late worker’s minor children until 18, up to a family maximum

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in Social Security

When a parent who worked and paid into Social Security dies, the system does something many families never realize is possible: it can send monthly checks to that worker’s young children, month after month, until they finish growing up. These survivor benefits are among the most valuable protections Social Security offers, and they are also…

Medicaid can put a claim on your home after paying for nursing-home care

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in Government Programs

For many families, the family home is the single most valuable thing a parent leaves behind. What often goes unmentioned is that if that parent spent years in a nursing home on Medicaid, the state may come looking to be repaid out of the home’s value after death. It is called estate recovery, it is…

Presbyterian Health Plan is ending most Medicare Advantage plans for 2027, affecting about 30,000 members

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in Medicare

In New Mexico, tens of thousands of older residents are about to lose the Medicare Advantage plan they have relied on. Presbyterian Healthcare Services, one of the state’s largest health systems, is ending most of its Medicare Advantage plans for 2027, a decision that affects roughly 30,000 members and comes paired with about 150 layoffs.…

Social Security still taxes up to 85% of benefits for higher-income retirees

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in Social Security

Plenty of retirees are surprised to learn that the Social Security check they spent a career paying into can be taxed a second time when it lands in their bank account. Up to 85 percent of a benefit can be counted as taxable income, and the thresholds that decide how much have not moved in…

Ozempic is one of 15 drugs getting a lower Medicare-negotiated price in 2027

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in Medicare

The most talked-about drug in America is about to get cheaper for the people who buy it through Medicare. Semaglutide — sold as Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus — is one of 15 medicines that will carry a new, lower Medicare-negotiated price starting January 1, 2027. For a Part D household filling one of these prescriptions,…

Medicare drug-plan premiums are set to rise for nearly half of enrollees next year as federal help ends

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in Medicare

A temporary federal cushion that has quietly held down Medicare drug-plan premiums for two years is being pulled away, and the effect will show up in millions of monthly bills. Federal officials announced on July 28, 2026 that the program shielding stand-alone drug plans from premium swings will end after December 31, 2026. For 2027,…

Medicaid work rules reach 44 states in 2027, and state sign-up help ends this month

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in Government Programs

Nearly every state is about to attach a work test to Medicaid, and one of the deadlines has almost nothing to do with the enrollees themselves. Before the new requirement takes hold in 44 states by the start of 2027, states were handed a narrow window to warn their members that the rules are coming…

New SNAP work rules put more than 5 million people, including 800,000 children, at risk of losing food aid

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