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Business 41 states at risk of losing federal SNAP funds, new data shows: What to know (NEXSTAR) – Dozens of states are going to have to start forking over more money to fund SNAP (or end up cutting food assistance) if they don’t get their error rates in check. With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill last year, the Trump administration put states on notice: If they don’t get their error rates under control, they’ll lose partial federal funding for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as Food Stamps), starting with the 2028 fiscal year. The target is an error rate under 6%, but few states are meeting that benchmark. In fact, in the latest batch of data released in June, there were more states with double the target rate than states that fell under it. The error rate refers to the percentage of SNAP benefits paid either above or below what people should have received, primarily because of mistakes. It includes overpayments and underpayments, but overpayments are more common. How to tell if your lettuce is safe to eat during cyclospora outbreak States with error rates higher than 6% will be required to start paying between 5% and 15% of benefit costs in October 2027. Those with higher error rates generally must pay more, but states with especially high mistake rates will have an extension as late as 2030 to comply. In the 2025 fiscal year, only nine states fell under the 6% error rate: Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The national average error rate is about 11%. The vast majority of states are above the target, and some far exceed it. Most of them have just one more year to get their acts together. Last year’s error rate was the first to count. Federal law says states can choose to use either their 2025 or 2026 error rates when determining what percentage of SNAP benefits they must pay starting in October 2027.

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Business Medicare charges a $1,736 hospital deductible each benefit period in 2026, and it can hit more than once a year. By Warren Cohen, Medicare beneficiaries who need more than one hospital stay in 2026 could owe $1,736 each time they are admitted, with no annual cap on how many times that charge applies. The per-benefit-period deductible, set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the coming year, covers a patient’s share of the first 60 days of inpatient care. Because federal rules place no limit on the number of benefit periods a person can accumulate in a single year, seniors with chronic conditions or repeated emergencies face a cost structure that can multiply rapidly on a fixed income. How the $1,736 per-period deductible works in 2026 CMS confirmed in its 2026 policy update that the inpatient hospital deductible will be $1,736 for each benefit period. A benefit period begins the day a patient is admitted as an inpatient and ends after 60 consecutive days outside a hospital or skilled nursing facility. If a beneficiary is discharged, stays out for 60 days, and then is readmitted, a new benefit period starts and the full $1,736 is owed again. The Social Security Administration reinforces this structure in its operational guidance, stating that a beneficiary is responsible for the deductible before the program begins paying for inpatient services in each benefit period. Federal law, specifically Section 1813 of the Social Security Act, sets out the cost-sharing framework and the annual update formula that CMS uses to calculate the deductible each year, as detailed in the statute’s benefit and cost-sharing provisions. The result is a charge tied not to the calendar but to episodes of care, a distinction that separates Original Medicare from most private insurance designs. This same $1,736 figure applies to inpatient psychiatric stays. C

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