The financial news that actually matters
Medicare Advantage shoppers in Illinois will choose among 136 plans for 2027, down from 157 this year, while Alabama and Arizona each gain 15 plans, according to the state-by-state fact sheets CMS published with its 2027 landscape on September 28, 2026. The Illinois drop of 21 plans is the largest decline among the eleven states…
Annuitants in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) who have not reached age 62 receive no annual cost-of-living adjustment, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recognizes four groups of exceptions. The rule returns to attention because the Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to publish the September consumer price index on October 14, 2026,…
A one-time $90 payment from the Medicare Improvement Fund is due to reach Original Medicare Part B enrollees this month, with most direct deposits expected around October 8, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The White House announced the payment in a fact sheet dated October 2, 2026, describing it as help…
A home-repair pilot that would pay for handrails, ramps and bathroom changes became federal law this summer, and nothing came with it to pay for them. The program exists on paper only. No grant round is open, no agency is taking applications, and no household or landlord can apply for anything today. Section 202 of…
The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to sell 11 healthcare mortgage loans at auction in November, each secured by a skilled nursing or assisted living facility. The facilities sit in nine states, though the public notice names neither the states nor the facilities. The loans are first-lien notes that HUD holds, and they…
Early October is when savers start asking what the next year’s retirement plan limits will be, and the Internal Revenue Service has not answered yet. The most senior figure on its 401(k) limits page is $83,250, the 2026 combined ceiling for workers aged 60 to 63 who take the enhanced catch-up. Nothing on that page,…
Treasury printed 40.9 million paper checks in fiscal year 2025, the department itself says, even though almost every federal payment now moves electronically. A proposed rule published on April 29, 2026 would finish the job of retiring them, but it remains a proposal. The comment period closed on June 15, 2026, and no final rule…
Only the costliest corner of Medicare’s drug spending will enter the agency’s new international price benchmark. A drug enters the GLOBE Model only if a single billing code for it brings in more than $100 million in Original Medicare Part B spending over a 12-month period, and only if the drug sits in one of…
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has set the ceiling for what a Medicare medical savings account plan may charge as a deductible in 2027, and the number is large. The agency’s calendar year 2027 rate announcement, dated April 6, 2026, puts the maximum at $18,900. That figure is a limit rather than a…
Disability claims that turn on a heart condition will be judged against a rewritten set of medical criteria starting Oct. 30. The Social Security Administration’s final rule revises the cardiovascular listings it uses to decide whether an impairment is severe enough to count as a disability, and it adds three listings that did not exist…