The financial news that actually matters
A Medicare beneficiary’s share of certain Part B drug bills will fall only if the beneficiary lives in an area CMS picks at random, under a final rule that takes effect November 30. The agency’s Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing model, known as GLOBE, ties what Medicare pays for selected drugs to prices in…
When a Medicare Advantage plan ends, its members get a one-time right to buy a Medigap supplement without answering health questions, and the clock on that right runs 63 days. Medicare’s own Medigap guide spells out the rule, which matters this fall because CMS’s 2027 plan tables show Florida dropping from 611 Medicare Advantage plans…
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says thirty states have already signed up for the federal scholarship tax credit, a new benefit that begins on Jan. 1, 2027. In an Oct. 1 IRS release, Bessent said “thirty states have already opted in, and we encourage all 50 states to participate.” The credit is worth up to $1,700…
A household that lost property in a federally declared disaster no longer has to itemize deductions to write off the loss. President Trump signed H.R. 5366, the Doug LaMalfa Federal Disaster Tax Relief Certainty Act, on Sept. 11, 2026, and it became Public Law 119-108. The rule reaches back to disasters whose incident periods began…
President Donald Trump’s October 5 executive order puts off a federal diesel tax; it does not remove it. Executive Order 14435, “Emergency Tax Relief on Diesel Fuel,” directs the Treasury to defer payment of the retail diesel taxes incurred from October 5 through December 31, 2026, without penalties or interest. The order does not say…
The federal credits for home energy upgrades and electric vehicles are closed, and the cutoff dates are already behind the calendar. Under Public Law 119-21, the 2025 tax law the IRS now presents as Working Families Tax Cuts, the Section 25C and Section 25D home energy credits do not apply to anything placed in service…
The Social Security Administration has not published a cost-of-living raise for 2027. Its COLA history page and its main COLA page both still show only the 2.8 percent increase that took effect for 2026. The figure that settles the new one is the September inflation reading from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, due at 8:30…
A tariff rebate needs tariff revenue, and right now the United States is collecting none from a broad, across-the-board tariff. The Supreme Court struck down the emergency tariffs on February 20, 2026, and the 10 percent replacement surcharge that followed ended by its own terms at 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 24. Nothing of that…
Medicaid’s new community-engagement rule is already law of the land: the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published it on June 3, 2026, and it took effect July 31. Every state must apply the test it creates no later than January 1, 2027, and adults who cannot show they meet it can be removed from…
Medicare Advantage shoppers in Florida will pick from 560 plans for 2027, down from 611 this year. Illinois falls from 157 plans to 136, and Maryland from 63 to 47. The totals come from the state-by-state fact sheets CMS put out for the coming plan year. Three states, three different cuts Florida loses 51 plans,…