Category: Benefits & Retirement
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Twenty-six more Social Security hearing notices now arrive online.
Social Security is putting more of the paperwork behind a disability appeal into a place claimants already check: their online account. As of this month, people with a pending hearing or appeal can view 26 additional case-related notices electronically instead of waiting for them in the mail. It’s a small-sounding update with a real dollar…
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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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Medicare’s drug benefit loses its coverage gap on January 1.
If you take prescription drugs on Medicare, you may already have noticed that the dreaded “donut hole,” the coverage gap where your costs used to jump, has quietly stopped hitting your wallet the way it once did. That’s not an accident, and it isn’t going away. Starting with the plan year that opens January 1,…
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The 2027 Medicare plan ratings will not carry the health-equity bonus CMS had planned to award.
Every Medicare Advantage and Part D plan gets a public quality score each year, from one to five stars, and that score does more than help shoppers compare options. It also decides how much extra federal money a plan collects. Federal regulators had spent several years developing a new piece of that scoring formula meant…
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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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Medicare’s 2027 plan prices do not reach the public comparison tool until sometime in October.
Every fall, headlines announce the average Medicare Advantage or Part D premium for the coming year, usually sometime in September. It’s easy to assume that means you can go online that same week and see exactly what your own 2027 plan options will cost. You can’t. The number that makes headlines in September is a…
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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…
