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Phelps is from one of the 80% to 90% of households expected to receive a stimulus payment from the government. And to the delight of many, that money is coming sooner than anticipated.

Most individuals can expect to receive up to $1,400, couples up to $2,800, and those with children and adult dependents can expect $1,400 for each one. Payments start tapering off for individuals making $75,000 per year, or married couples making $150,000. And unlike the earlier stimulus checks, the maximum cutoff is lower: Individuals no longer qualify once they make $80,000 a year ($160,000 for couples).

According to the U.S. Treasury, payments to eligible Americans will continue through the next several weeks on a rolling basis. Most people who are eligible will automatically receive those payments — no action required.

The IRS says it will automatically calculate the amount that people receive, based on their latest processed tax return.

Payments will go out in batches. The first batch will go to taxpayers who provided direct deposit information on their 2019 or 2020 tax returns. That will be followed by a second batch to taxpayers for whom the IRS already has payment info. For them, the payments could come in the form of checks or prepaid debit cards in the mail.People who receive Social Security or other federal benefits will receive the payment in the same way as their regular benefits. The IRS has not yet announced a payment date for this group, but says it will do so shortly.

The Treasury says it will provide more information in the coming days for people who don't have a bank account, or whose address has recently changed. People will soon be able to check the status of their stimulus check at the IRS website.For Phelps of GenDrop, the deposit is already "pending" in his bank account, and should be available within days.

A more effective approach, experts say, would have raised unemployment insurance benefits to the jobless by $600 a week, matching the supplement under the stimulus package Congress passed last spring, rather than the $300 weekly subsidy the new legislation provides. Democrats had pushed for larger payments to the jobless and included it in legislation that passed the House, which they control. But the measure met stiff resistance from Republicans, who control the Senate, and was not included in the final compromise bill.

A study released in August by three economists, Olivier Coibion, Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Michael Weber, found that recipients of the $1,200 payments sent out under the CARES Act last spring largely held off on spending the money. Only 15 percent of people said they had spent it, or planned to spend it. Most said they would save the cash or use it to pay down debt..css-fk3g7a{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.125rem;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-fk3g7a{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-akgeos{margin-bottom:15px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.75rem;line-height:1rem;color:#787878;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-akgeos{font-size:0.8125rem;line-height:1.125rem;}}.css-110ouu6{margin:10px auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-110ouu6{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-110ouu6{font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.75rem;margin-bottom:5px;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-110ouu6{font-size:1.5rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-121grtr{margin:0 auto 10px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:'Collapse';}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:'';background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-6s5quk{background-color:white;max-width:600px;width:calc(100% - 40px);margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-6s5quk{width:100%;margin:40px auto;}}.css-6s5quk:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-6s5quk{padding:0;max-width:600px;margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;}.css-6s5quk[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-6s5quk[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-6s5quk[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:'See more';}.css-6s5quk[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1crgp49{border:1px solid #e2e2e2;padding:15px;margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}@media (min-width:600px){.css-1crgp49{padding:20px;}}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1crgp49{border-top:1px solid #121212;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-right:none;padding:20px 0 0;}.css-1crgp49 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1crgp49 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1crgp49 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-1crgp49 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-1crgp49 a:hover{border-bottom:none;}The Second StimulusAnswers to Your Questions About the Stimulus BillUpdated Dec 30, 2020The economic relief package will issue payments of $600 and distribute a federal unemployment benefit of $300 for at least 10 weeks. Find more about the measure and what’s in it for you. For details on how to get assistance, check out our Hub for Help.Will I receive another stimulus payment? Individual adults with adjusted gross income on their 2019 tax returns of up to $75,000 a year will receive a $600 payment, and a couple (or someone whose spouse died in 2020) earning up to $150,000 a year will get twice that amount. There is also a $600 payment for each child for families who meet those income requirements. People who file taxes using the head of household status and make up to $112,500 also get $600, plus the additional amount for children. People with incomes just above these levels will receive a partial payment that declines by $5 for every $100 in income.When might my payment arrive? The Treasury Department said on Dec. 29 that it had started making direct deposit payments, and would begin to mail checks the next day. But it will be a while before all eligible people receive their money.Does the agreement affect unemployment insurance? Lawmakers agreed to extend the amount of time that people can collect unemployment benefits and restart an extra federal benefit that is provided on top of the usual state benefit. But instead of $600 a week, it would be $300. That will last through March 14.I am behind on my rent or expect to be soon. Will I receive any relief? The agreement will provide $25 billion to be distributed through state and local governments to help renters who have fallen behind. To receive assistance, households will have to meet several conditions: Household income (for 2020) cannot exceed more than 80 percent of the area median income; at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or housing instability; and individuals must qualify for unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship — directly or indirectly — because of the pandemic. The agreement said assistance will be prioritized for families with lower incomes and that have been unemployed for three months or more.Of course, some of the money flowing into the economy could soon reach those who need it most. And it will provide a financial cushion even for middle-class families who are secure by most measures but remain on edge from the turbulence of 2020.

“In no way am I rich,” she said. “But I feel like my $600 would make a bigger impact on someone who has been dealing with struggles far worse than I have during this pandemic.”

“Social Security staff is working day and night with Treasury and IRS representatives to ensure that the electronic file of Social Security and SSI recipients is complete, accurate, and ready to be used to issue payments,” the spokesperson said. 

Most Americans receive the payments based on their tax returns, but people who don’t owe federal income taxes aren’t required to file returns. In the previous two rounds of payments, the IRS used payment information on file with Social Security to send checks to retirement or disability beneficiaries who are non-filers. 

It's likely that Americans would receive the stimulus payments faster this time around because more of them file electronically and provide the IRS with their bank information, Gleckman said. Some 88% of individual returns were filed electronically in 2018, compared to 58% in 2008.But there are other factors that may slow the process. Even absent the coronavirus challenges, the agency is working with a smaller budget and less staff than it had in 2010. Now, because of the coronavirus, the agency has shut down its in-person taxpayer assistance centers located across the country at a time when people are sure to have questions about the emergency checks and other changes. Treasury announced last week that it is pushing back the tax return deadline to July 15. Additionally, Congress created a new tax credit designed to refund businesses that are offering their employees coronavirus-related paid leave.

First, the IRS will have to calculate each person's payment amount. Then, it will need the correct direct deposit information or mailing addresses. To get the money to people who don't usually file tax returns, it might have to request that information from the Social Security Administration or Veterans Affairs. In 2008, those people were required to file a return anyway in order to get their rebate.Meanwhile, the IRS will inevitably be fielding calls from Americans concerned about when their check will arrive and whether they took all the necessary steps to receive the money.

Later in 2008, after the economic stimulus checks were sent out, Olson testified before Congress, telling lawmakers that they should fund a new unit within the agency that would be dedicated to facilitating new and emergency initiatives. She argued that it would free up other employees to focus on improving the existing systems and executing the day-to-day work of the agency -- but that never happened.

The decision to bundle the payments to the IMF brings forward a decision that was coming anyway. EU sources say the Greeks cannot meet a fresh deadline for €750m next week.

But Democrats counter that the bill takes a holistic look at the entire American economy and how it was affected by the pandemic.

Senate Democrats agreed to lower the income cutoff at which payments phase out from $100,000 to $80,000 for individuals, and from $200,000 to $160,000 for couples filing jointly, following demands from moderate Democrats.

Progressive Democrats vigorously pursued including a minimum wage hike in this legislation, which would have gradually increased the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.

Individuals earning up to $75,000 and couples earning up to $150,000 would receive the full direct payments of $1,400 per person. Individuals will also receive an additional $1,400 payment for each dependent claimed on their tax returns.

"The major pieces of the bill — payments to individuals, extended unemployment, money for states and localities, money for schools — all of those things were in the COVID package that passed last year that all the Republicans voted for. So they were OK then, but they're not OK now, and I frankly can't really figure out that argument."

Under the Senate version, federal unemployment insurance payments will remain at $300 per week — down from $400 per week

The bill includes $7.25 billion in new money for the small-business loan program known as PPP and would allow more nonprofits to apply, including those groups that engage in advocacy and some limited lobbying. It also allows larger nonprofits to be eligible.

There are over $128 billion in grants to state educational agencies, with 90% allocated to local educational agencies, plus $39 billion in grants to higher education institutions.

The bill includes $4.5 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, to help families with home heating and cooling costs.

The bill provides $37 million to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program for low-income seniors.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to receive $7.5 billion to track, administer and distribute COVID-19 vaccines. Another $46 billion would go toward diagnosing and tracing coronavirus infections, and $2 billion would go toward buying and distributing various testing supplies and personal protective equipment.

There is $25 billion for emergency rental assistance, including $5 billion for emergency housing vouchers for people experiencing homelessness, survivors of domestic violence and victims of human trafficking.

The McDougal payment was orchestrated by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign violations stemming from his role in two hush-money payments: the one AMI made to McDougal and a separate $130,000 payment he made to another woman, Stormy Daniels, who also alleged an affair that Trump denies.

When the FEC's vote on the matter became public in May, Trump praised the results, saying it closed the book on what he called the "phony case against me."

Biden is pushing for the big steps he says are needed to address immediate needs and control the coronavirus pandemic. He also plans to lay out an economic recovery plan in coming weeks that aims to create jobs and combat the climate crisis, among other measures.

The plan calls for sending another $1,400 per person to eligible recipients. This money would be in addition to the $600 payments that were approved by Congress in December and sent out earlier this month -- for a total of $2,000

nother $5 billion would be set aside to help struggling renters to pay their utility bills.

Biden would increase the federal boost the jobless receive to $400 a week, from the $300 weekly enhancement contained in Congress' relief package from December.

He would also extend the payments, along with two key pandemic unemployment programs, through September. This applies to those in the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program who have exhausted their regular state jobless payments and in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides benefits to the self-employed, independent contractors, gig workers and certain people affected by the pandemic.

These are key parts of a $1.9 trillion proposal that President-elect Joe Biden unveiled Thursday evening.

The plan would provide $25 billion in rental assistance for low- and moderate-income households who have lost jobs during the pandemic. That's in addition to the $25 billion lawmakers provided in December.

Biden would extend the 15% increase in food stamp benefits through September, instead of having it expire in June.

The plan calls on Congress to create a $25 billion emergency fund and add $15 billion to an existing grant program to help child care providers, including family child care homes, to pay for rent, utilities, and payroll, and increased costs associated with the pandemic like personal protective equipment.

Biden wants to boost the Child Tax Credit to $3,600 for children under age 6 and $3,000 for those between ages 6 and 17 for a year.

Also, he wants Congress to provide $4 billion for mental health and substance use disorder services and $20 billion to meet the health care needs of veterans.

It also proposes making a $35 billion investment in some state, local, tribal, and non-profit financing programs that make low-interest loans and provide venture capital to entrepreneurs

Under Biden's proposal, people who are sick or quarantining, or caring for a child whose school is closed, will receive 14 weeks of paid leave. The government will reimburse employers with fewer than 500 workers for the full cost of providing the leave.

he plan calls for providing $15 billion to create a new grant program for small business owners, separate from the existing Paycheck Protection Program.

He wants to increase and expand the Affordable Care Act's premium subsidies so that enrollees don't have to pay more than 8.5% of their income for coverage -- which is also one of his campaign promises. (The law is facing a challenge from Republican-led states that is currently before the Supreme Court.)

Biden wants to send $350 billion to state, local and territorial governments to keep their frontline workers employed, distribute the vaccine, increase testing, reopen schools and maintain vital services.

Additional assistance to states has been among the most controversial elements of the congressional rescue packages, with Democrats looking to add to the $150 billion in the March legislation and Republicans resisting such efforts. The December package ultimately dropped an initial call to include $160 billion.

Biden's plan would also give $20 billion to the hardest-hit public transit agencies to help avert layoffs and the cutting of routes.

The plan would provide an additional $170 billion to K-12 schools, colleges and universities to help them reopen and operate safely or to facilitate remote learning.

It would also fund the hiring of 100,000 public health workers, nearly tripling the community health workforce.

The proposal would also invest $50 billion in testing, providing funds to purchase rapid tests, expand lab capacity and help schools implement regular testing to support reopening.

The plan calls for investing $20 billion in a national vaccination program, including launching community vaccination centers around the country and mobile units in hard-to-reach areas

Biden is calling on Congress to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and to end the tipped minimum wage and the sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities.

Biden's relief proposal now shifts to Congress, where it may change substantially as Democratic leaders transform it into a bill. They must decide whether they want to use a special legislative process called reconciliation, which would require only a simple majority of votes to pass the Senate -- eliminating the need for Republican support -- but would limit the provisions that could be included. Also, reconciliation also be used only sparingly each year.

In his speech Thursday night, Biden said he would like to work with members of both parties to enact his American Rescue Plan, indicating that he wants to go the traditional route, which would require the backing of at least 10 Republican senators.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told The Washington Post on Thursday that people should get an additional $2,000 in stimulus checks on top of the $600 they received as part of the $900 billion relief package lawmakers passed last month -- more than the $1,400 top-off payment Biden is suggesting.

In coming weeks, senators will have their hands full with President Donald Trump's impeachment trial and with voting on the President-elect's Cabinet nominees, none of whom have been confirmed yet.

Whatever leaders decide, the effort is expected to have an easier time passing in the House -- which approved a $3 trillion relief package last May that contained measures similar to those in Biden's plan -- even though Democrats now hold a slimmer majority there.

One of those senators is Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia. He has recently expressed doubts over providing $2,000 in stimulus payments, preferring a more targeted approach.

President-elect Joe Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion relief package Thursday that included more stimulus payments and other direct aid, but don't expect to see those funds in your bank account anytime soon.

“Conventional mortgages have survived many financial crises, but they may not survive the climate crisis,” said Jesse Keenan, an associate professor at Tulane University. “This trend also reflects a systematic financial risk for banks and the U.S. taxpayers who ultimately foot the bill.”

The question that matters, according to researchers, isn’t whether the effects of climate change will start to ripple through the housing market. Rather, it’s how fast those effects will occur and what they will look like.

It’s not only along the nation’s rivers and coasts where climate-induced risk has started to push down home prices. In parts of the West, the growing danger of wildfires is already making it harder for homeowners to get insurance.

as the world warms, that long-term nature of conventional mortgages might not be as desirable as it once was, as rising seas and worsening storms threaten to make some land uninhabitable. A retreat from the 30-year mortgage could also put homeownership out of reach for more Americans.

Those homes are valued at $241 billion.

In 2016, Freddie Mac’s chief economist at the time, Sean Becketti, warned that losses from flooding both inland and along the coasts are “likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and the Great Recession.”

If climate change makes coastal homes uninsurable, Dr. Becketti wrote, their value could fall to nothing, and unlike the 2008 financial crisis, “homeowners will have no expectation that the values of their homes will ever recover.”

In 30 years from now, if global-warming emissions follow their current trajectory, almost half a million existing homes will be on land that floods at least once a year,

It could also be one of the most economically significant. During the 2008 financial crisis, a decline in home values helped cripple the financial system and pushed almost 9 million Americans out of work.

new research shows banks rapidly shifting mortgages with flood risk off their books and over to organizations like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored entities whose debts are backed by taxpayers

the lenders selling off coastal mortgages the fastest are smaller local banks, which are more likely than large national banks to know which neighborhoods face the greatest climate risk.

In 2009, local banks sold off 43 percent of their mortgages in vulnerable zones, Dr. Keenan and Mr. Bradt found, about the same share as other areas. But by 2017, the share had jumped by one-third, to 57 percent, despite staying flat in less vulnerable neighborhoods.

Dr. Keenan found banks protecting themselves in other ways, such as lending less money to home buyers in vulnerable areas, relative to the value of the homes.

a growing share of mortgages had required down payments between 21 percent and 40 percent — what Dr. Keenan called nonconventional loans.

flood insurance isn’t likely to address the problem, Dr. Keenan said, because it doesn’t protect against the risk of a house losing value and ultimately becoming unsellable.

More homeowners are also taking out a type of mortgage that is less financially painful for a borrower to walk away from if a home becomes uninhabitable because of rising seas. These are known as interest-only mortgages — the monthly payment covers only the interest on the loan, and doesn’t reduce the principal owed.

It’s a loan you can never pay off with the regular monthly payments. However, it also means buyers aren’t sinking any more of their own money into the property beyond a down payment. That’s an advantage if you think the property may become unlivable.

he share of homes with fixed-rate, 30-year mortgages has declined sharply — to less than 80 percent, as of 2016 — in areas most exposed to storm surge

More than 10 percent of homeowners in those areas had interest-only loans in 2016, compared with just 2.3 percent in other ZIP Codes.

“What happens when the water starts lapping at these properties, and they get abandoned?” she said.

Cardiologists are not the only doctors who have been migrating toward hospital practice. In the last few years, there have been increases in the number of doctors working for hospitals across the specialties. And spreads between fees for office services exist in an array of medical services, down to the basic office visit. The president's proposal would apply to all doctors working in off-campus, hospital-owned practices.

Like Medicare, most private insurers pay higher prices to hospitals than to independent doctors.Private insurers tend to copy many of Medicare’s payment policies. And, in general, large hospital groups tend to have more negotiating clout with insurers, meaning they can bargain for higher prices than smaller practices.

Hospitals don’t like the idea. Nearly all the money would come out of their pockets, and they argue that running a medical practice really does cost more for hospitals than it does for independent physician practices. Hospitals have to stay open at all hours, run emergency rooms and comply with an array of regulatory requirements that physician-owned practices don't need to worry about.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Committee, a group of experts that advises Congress, thinks that the pay differences should be narrowed, but only for a select set of medical services in which it’s really clear that there’s no difference between the care offered by a hospital and a physician office.

The pay differences, of course, are not the only reason that more doctors are going to work for hospitals. There are generational trends: Younger doctors are less interested in entrepreneurship and more interested in predictable hours and salary. And another Medicare program is trying to create financial incentives for health systems to manage patients’ entire health care experience, which many hospitals find easier to do if they employ the doctors.

in contrast to a lot of things in the president’s budget, it’s hard to dismiss this proposal as mere wishful thinking. Congress is often looking for places to save money in the Medicare budget, in part because it must find money every year to keep all doctors’ pay from declining precipitously — the result of a misguided payment formula passed in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, the White House said in March it didn’t know of the payment, and in April Trump himself said he didn’t know about the payment. Giuliani had a clever explanation for this, too: Trump really hadn’t known about the payment, and had only learned of it in the last two weeks

This still left some implausible holes. Giuliani claimed that Trump had paid Cohen as part of a normal retainer agreement, yet Cohen said he had to take funds out of a home-equity line of credit to pay Daniels. How many lawyers take out loans while waiting for their normal pay to clear? There was a deeper problem, too: Giuliani’s aim had clearly been to show that Trump hadn’t violated campaign-finance law with the payment

But Giuliani destroyed any impression that he had a cleverly elegant solution the following morning on Fox and Friends. Giuliani said first that the payment had nothing to do with the campaign, an essential part of his argument that no campaign-finance laws could have been broken.“This was for personal reasons,” Giuliani said. “It wasn’t for the campaign. It was to save their marr—not their marriage so much, but their reputation.”But moments later, he blew his own argument apart, acknowledging the concern that the Daniels story could have emerged and hurt Trump in the home stretch of the campaign.“Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton,” he said.

We still don’t know whether Trump really reimbursed Cohen, when he did so, and when he learned what he was reimbursing Cohen for. All we know is that the president’s lawyers and associates have misled the public in the last three days, and some of them knowingly. Trump is in the latter camp, since he conferred with Giuliani and confirmed his account, then said it wasn’t straight. Giuliani’s statements are also at odds with each other, so he was not telling the truth in at least one case.

The bill does not help people in that circumstance now, but you may benefit once you file your 2020 taxes.

three weeks.

According to the bill, you would get a paper notice in the mail no later than a few weeks after your payment had been disbursed. That notice would contain information about where the payment ended up and in what form it was made. If you couldn’t locate the payment at that point, it would be time to contact the I.R.S. using the information on the notice.

Yes. Menstrual products are now eligible for reimbursement after at least 15 years of lobbying and debate.

Did the legislation make it illegal for any internet provider to cut off service to an individual or small business that can’t pay its bills?No.Did the legislation make it illegal for utility providers to cut off service?No.

Although the White House and Senate leaders struck a deal on the legislation early Wednesday morning, an exact time for the Senate vote has not yet been scheduled and it's not yet clear when the House will vote to approve the measure.

Mr. Trump’s indication that he will not sign the legislation without changes, including more than tripling the size of the direct payments to individuals, from $600 to $2,000, could further delay both the distribution of any payments and the amount of time it takes for jobless workers to begin seeing their payments again. (The legislation, if signed, does ensure workers will receive back payments for the time missed.)

The House is set to convene on Thursday, Christmas Eve, in a so-called pro forma session, typically a brief meeting that requires one lawmaker be present and lasts for just a few minutes. In that session, House Democrats plan to bring up a stand-alone bill that would provide for $2,000 direct payments for American families.

“We need to send a clean bill with just $2,000 survival checks and a separate spending/covid relief bill,” Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s ire, wrote Tuesday evening on Twitter, adding, “since Trump wants to sign a bill with survival checks, let’s send one to his desk right away.”

All legislation dies with a Congress, so without Mr. Trump’s signature in the next 10 days, the behemoth legislation would have to be reintroduced and voted on a second time, further delaying funding of the government and providing relief to struggling Americans and businesses.

But the diagnoses had a lucrative side effect: They let the insurers collect more money from the federal government’s Medicare Advantage program.

Medicare Advantage, a private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare, was designed by Congress two decades ago to encourage health insurers to find innovative ways to provide better care at lower cost.

by next year, more than half of Medicare recipients will be in a private plan.

a New York Times review of dozens of fraud lawsuits, inspector general audits and investigations by watchdogs shows how major health insurers exploited the program to inflate their profits by billions of dollars.

The government pays Medicare Advantage insurers a set amount for each person who enrolls, with higher rates for sicker patients. And the insurers, among the largest and most prosperous American companies, have developed elaborate systems to make their patients appear as sick as possible, often without providing additional treatment, according to the lawsuits.

As a result, a program devised to help lower health care spending has instead become substantially more costly than the traditional government program it was meant to improve.

Eight of the 10 biggest Medicare Advantage insurers — representing more than two-thirds of the market — have submitted inflated bills, according to the federal audits. And four of the five largest players — UnitedHealth, Humana, Elevance and Kaiser — have faced federal lawsuits alleging that efforts to overdiagnose their customers crossed the line into fraud.

The government now spends nearly as much on Medicare Advantage’s 29 million beneficiaries as on the Army and Navy combined. It’s enough money that even a small increase in the average patient’s bill adds up: The additional diagnoses led to $12 billion in overpayments in 2020, according to an estimate from the group that advises Medicare on payment policies — enough to cover hearing and vision care for every American over 65.

Another estimate, from a former top government health official, suggested the overpayments in 2020 were double that, more than $25 billion.

The increased privatization has come as Medicare’s finances have been strained by the aging of baby boomers

Medicare Advantage plans can limit patients’ choice of doctors, and sometimes require jumping through more hoops before getting certain types of expensive care.

At conferences, companies pitched digital services to analyze insurers’ medical records and suggest additional codes. Such consultants were often paid on commission; the more money the analysis turned up, the more the companies kept.

they often have lower premiums or perks like dental benefits — extras that draw beneficiaries to the programs. The more the plans are overpaid by Medicare, the more generous to customers they can afford to be.

Many of the fraud lawsuits were initially brought by former employees under a federal whistle-blower law that allows them to get a percentage of any money repaid to the government if their suits prevail. But most have been joined by the Justice Department, a step the government takes only if it believes the fraud allegations have merit. Last year, the department’s civil division listed Medicare Advantage as one of its top areas of fraud recovery.

In contrast, regulators overseeing the plans at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or C.M.S., have been less aggressive, even as the overpayments have been described in inspector general investigations, academic research, Government Accountability Office studies, MedPAC reports and numerous news articles,

Congress gave the agency the power to reduce the insurers’ rates in response to evidence of systematic overbilling, but C.M.S. has never chosen to do so. A regulation proposed in the Trump administration to force the plans to refund the government for more of the incorrect payments has not been finalized four years later. Several top officials have swapped jobs between the industry and the agency.

The popularity of Medicare Advantage plans has helped them avoid legislative reforms. The plans have become popular in urban areas, and have been increasingly embraced by Democrats as well as Republicans.

“You have a powerful insurance lobby, and their lobbyists have built strong support for this in Congress,”

Some critics say the lack of oversight has encouraged the industry to compete over who can most effectively game the system rather than who can provide the best care.

But for insurers that already dominate health care for workers, the program is strikingly lucrative: A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research group unaffiliated with the insurer Kaiser, found the companies typically earn twice as much gross profit from their Medicare Advantage plans as from other types of insurance.

In theory, if the insurers could do better than traditional Medicare — by better managing patients’ care, or otherwise improving their health — their patients would cost less and the insurers would make more money.

But some insurers engaged in strategies — like locating their enrollment offices upstairs, or offering gym memberships — to entice only the healthiest seniors, who would require less care, to join. To deter such tactics, Congress decided to pay more for sicker patients.

Almost immediately, companies saw ways to exploit that system. The traditional Medicare program provided no financial incentive to doctors to document every diagnosis, so many records were incomplete

Under the new program, insurers began rigorously documenting all of a patient’s health conditions — say depression, or a long-ago stroke — even when they had nothing to do with the patient’s current medical care.

“Even when they’re playing the game legally, we are lining the pockets of very wealthy corporations that are not improving patient care,”

The insurers also began hiring agencies that sent doctors or nurses to patients’ homes, where they could diagnose them with more diseases.

Cigna hired firms to perform similar at-home assessments that generated billions in extra payments, according to a 2017 whistle-blower lawsuit, which was recently joined by the Justice Department. The firms told nurses to document new diagnoses without adjusting medications, treating patients or sending them to a specialist

Nurses were told to especially look for patients with a history of diabetes because it was not “curable,” even if the patient now had normal lab findings or had undergone surgery to treat the condition.

Adding the code for a single diagnosis could yield a substantial payoff. In a 2020 lawsuit, the government said Anthem instructed programmers to scour patient charts for “revenue-generating” codes. One patient was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, although no other doctor reported the condition, and Anthem received an additional $2,693.27, the lawsuit said. Another patient was said to have been coded for “active lung cancer,” despite no evidence of the disease in other records; Anthem was paid an additional $7,080.74. The case is continuing.

The most common allegation against the companies was that they did not correct potentially invalid diagnoses after becoming aware of them. At Anthem, for example, the Justice Department said “thousands” of inaccurate diagnoses were not deleted. According to the lawsuit, a finance executive calculated that eliminating the inaccurate diagnoses would reduce the company’s 2017 earnings from reviewing medical charts by $86 million, or 72 percent.

Some of the companies took steps to ensure the extra diagnoses didn’t lead to expensive care. In an October 2021 lawsuit, the Justice Department estimated that Kaiser earned $1 billion between 2009 and 2018 from additional diagnoses, including roughly 100,000 findings of aortic atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. But the plan stopped automatically enrolling those patients in a heart attack prevention program because doctors would be forced to follow up on too many people, the lawsuit said.

Kaiser, which both runs a health plan and provides medical care, is often seen as a model system. But its control over providers gave it additional leverage to demand additional diagnoses from the doctors themselves, according to the lawsuit.

At meetings with supervisors, he was instructed to find additional conditions worth tens of millions of dollars. “It was an actual agenda item and how could we get this,” Dr. Taylor said.

few analysts expect major legislative or regulatory changes to the program.

Even before the first lawsuits were filed, regulators and government watchdogs could see the number of profitable diagnoses escalating. But Medicare has done little to tamp down overcharging.

Several experts, including Medicare’s advisory commission, have recommended reducing all the plans’ payments.

Congress has ordered several rounds of cuts and gave C.M.S. the power to make additional reductions if the plans continued to overbill. The agency has not exercised that power.

The agency does periodically audit insurers by looking at a few hundred of their customers’ cases. But insurers are fined for billing mistakes found only in those specific patients. A rule proposed during the Trump administration to extrapolate the fines to the rest of the plan’s customers has not been finalized.

Ted Doolittle, who served as a senior official for the agency’s Center for Program Integrity from 2011 to 2014, said officials at Medicare seemed uninterested in confronting the industry over these practices. “It was clear that there was some resistance coming from inside” the agency, he said. “There was foot dragging.”

Last year, the inspector general’s office noted that one company “stood out” for collecting 40 percent of all Medicare Advantage’s payments from chart reviews and home assessments despite serving only 22 percent of the program’s beneficiaries. It recommended Medicare pay extra attention to the company, which it did not name, but the enrollment figure matched UnitedHealth’s.

“Medicare Advantage overpayments are a political third rail,” said Dr. Richard Gilfillan, a former hospital and insurance executive and a former top regulator at Medicare, in an email. “The big health care plans know it’s wrong, and they know how to fix it, but they’re making too much money to stop. Their C.E.O.s should come to the table with Medicare as they did for the Affordable Care Act, end the coding frenzy, and let providers focus on better care, not more dollars for plans.”

What took Germany so long to pay for the war? Didn't World War I end long ago? Does this mean we're all survivors of the Great War?

On Oct. 3, Germany paid off the last installment of interest, finally settling its World War I accounts.

On WeChat, those services are underpinned by its mobile payments system, WeChat Pay. Because payments is already tied into the messaging service, people can easily order meal deliveries, book hotels, hail ride-sharing cars and pay their bills. WeChat Pay itself has 900 million monthly active users.

People also use WeChat Pay to transfer money and to buy personal finance products. More than 100 million customers have purchased WeChat’s personal finance products, which managed over 500 billion yuan, or $74 billion, by the end of last September, Tencent has said. Its users can buy everything from bonds and insurance to money market funds through the app.

“He is renowned in China’s tech scene as an artist and philosopher, as well as for his fierce mission against anything that degrades user experience,”

In a four-hour speech earlier this year, he pondered the question of why there were not more ads on the messaging service, especially the opening-page ads that are the norm in many other Chinese mobile apps.

Mr. Zhang’s answer: Many Chinese spent a lot of time — about one third of their online time — on WeChat, he said. “If WeChat were a person, it would have to be your best friend so that you would be willing to spend so much time with it,” he said. “How could I post an ad on the face of your best friend? Every time you see it, you’ll have to watch an ad before you can talk to it.”

Tencent makes most of its money from online games so that it does not need to sell ads for revenue.

said Ivy Li, a venture capitalist at Seven Seas Partners in Menlo Park, Calif. “How comprehensive the surgery is going to be and whether the implementation will be twisted by all kinds of compromises is a big question.”

She added: “Facebook is trying to seek a balance between a public square and a private space in an increasingly polarizing society. The final result could be it will be abandoned by both.”

On the present trajectory, it will kill, by late April, more Americans than Vietnam. Having earlier promised that casualties could be held near zero, Trump now claims he will have done a “very good job” if the toll is held below 200,000 dead.

The United States is on trajectory to suffer more sickness, more dying, and more economic harm from this virus than any other comparably developed country.

The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault

That states are bidding against other states for equipment, paying many multiples of the precrisis price for ventilators, is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too

Trump failed. He is failing. He will continue to fail. And Americans are paying for his failures.

The lying about the coronavirus by hosts on Fox News and conservative talk radio is Trump’s fault: They did it to protect him

The false hope of instant cures and nonexistent vaccines is Trump’s fault, because he told those lies to cover up his failure to act in time.

The severity of the economic crisis is Trump’s fault; things would have been less bad if he had acted faster instead of sending out his chief economic adviser and his son Eric to assure Americans that the first stock-market dips were buying opportunities.

The fact that so many key government jobs were either empty or filled by mediocrities? Trump’s fault. The insertion of Trump’s arrogant and incompetent son-in-law as commander in chief of the national medical supply chain? Trump’s fault.

sooner or later, every president must face a supreme test, a test that cannot be evaded by blather and bluff and bullying.

Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. The refusal of red-state governors to act promptly, the failure to close Florida and Gulf Coast beaches until late March? That fault is more widely shared, but again, responsibility rests with Trump: He could have stopped it, and he did not.

Those lost weeks also put the United States—and thus the world—on the path to an economic collapse steeper than any in recent memory.

It’s a good guess that the unemployment rate had reached 13 percent by April 3. It may peak at 20 percent, perhaps even higher, and threatens to stay at Great Depression–like levels at least into 2021, maybe longer.

This country—buffered by oceans from the epicenter of the global outbreak, in East Asia; blessed with the most advanced medical technology on Earth; endowed with agencies and personnel devoted to responding to pandemics—could have and should have suffered less than nations nearer to China

Through the early weeks of the pandemic, when so much death and suffering could still have been prevented or mitigated, Trump joined passivity to fantasy. In those crucial early days, Trump made two big wagers. He bet that the virus could somehow be prevented from entering the United States by travel restrictions. And he bet that, to the extent that the virus had already entered the United States, it would burn off as the weather warmed.

If Trump truly was so trustingly ignorant as late as January 22, the fault was again his own. The Trump administration had cut U.S. public-health staff operating inside China by two-thirds, from 47 in January 2017 to 14 by 2019, an important reason it found itself dependent on less-accurate information from the World Health Organization. In July 2019, the Trump administration defunded the position that embedded an epidemiologist inside China’s own disease-control administration, again obstructing the flow of information to the United States.

Yet even if Trump did not know what was happening, other Americans did. On January 27, former Vice President Joe Biden sounded the alarm about a global pandemic in an op-ed in USA Today.

Because Trump puts so much emphasis on this point, it’s important to stress that none of this is true. Trump did not close the borders early—in fact, he did not truly close them at all.

Trump’s actions did little to stop the spread of the virus. The ban applied only to foreign nationals who had been in China during the previous 14 days, and included 11 categories of exceptions. Since the restrictions took effect, nearly 40,000 passengers have entered the United States from China, subjected to inconsistent screenings, The New York Times reported.

At a House hearing on February 5, a few days after the restrictions went into effect, Ron Klain—who led the Obama administration’s efforts against the Ebola outbreak—condemned the Trump policy as a “travel Band-Aid, not a travel ban.”

The president’s top priority through February 2020 was to exact retribution from truth-tellers in the impeachment fight.

Intentionally or not, Trump’s campaign of payback against his perceived enemies in the impeachment battle sent a warning to public-health officials: Keep your mouth shut

Throughout the crisis, the top priority of the president, and of everyone who works for the president, has been the protection of his ego

Denial became the unofficial policy of the administration through the month of February, and as a result, that of the administration’s surrogates and propagandists.

That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scolded a House committee for daring to ask him about the coronavirus. “We agreed that I’d come today to talk about Iran, and the first question today is not about Iran.”

The president’s lies must not be contradicted. And because the president’s lies change constantly, it’s impossible to predict what might contradict him.

During the pandemic, this psychological deformity has mutated into a deadly strategic vulnerability for the United States.

For three-quarters of his presidency, Trump has taken credit for the economic expansion that began under President Barack Obama in 2010. That expansion accelerated in 2014, just in time to deliver real prosperity over the past three years

The harm done by Trump’s own initiatives, and especially his trade wars, was masked by that continued growth.

The economy Trump inherited became his all-purpose answer to his critics. Did he break laws, corrupt the Treasury, appoint cronies, and tell lies? So what? Unemployment was down, the stock market up.

On February 28, very few Americans had heard of an estimated death toll of 35,000 to 40,000, but Trump had heard it. And his answer to that estimate was: “So far, we have lost nobody.” He conceded, “It doesn’t mean we won’t.” But he returned to his happy talk. “We are totally prepared.” And as always, it was the media's fault. “You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.”

on February 28, it was still not too late to arrange an orderly distribution of medical supplies to the states, not too late to coordinate with U.S. allies, not too late to close the Florida beaches before spring break, not too late to bring passengers home from cruise lines, not too late to ensure that state unemployment-insurance offices were staffed and ready, not too late for local governments to get funds to food banks, not too late to begin social distancing fast and early

Stay-at-home orders could have been put into effect on March 1, not in late March and early April.

So much time had been wasted by the end of February. So many opportunities had been squandered. But even then, the shock could have been limited. Instead, Trump and his inner circle plunged deeper into two weeks of lies and denial, both about the disease and about the economy.

Kudlow repeated his advice that it was a good time to buy stocks on CNBC on March 6 after another bad week for the financial markets. As late as March 9, Trump was still arguing that the coronavirus would be no worse than the seasonal flu.

The overwhelmed president responded by doing what comes most naturally to him at moments of trouble: He shifted the blame to others.

Trump’s instinct to dodge and blame had devastating consequences for Americans. Every governor and mayor who needed the federal government to take action, every science and medical adviser who hoped to prevent Trump from doing something stupid or crazy, had to reckon with Trump’s psychic needs as their single biggest problem.

Governors got the message too. “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” Trump explained at a White House press briefing on March 27. The federal response has been dogged by suspicions of favoritism for political and personal allies of Trump. The District of Columbia has seen its requests denied, while Florida gets everything it asks for.

The Trump administration is allocating some supplies through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but has made the deliberate choice to allow large volumes of crucial supplies to continue to be distributed by commercial firms to their clients. That has left state governments bidding against one another, as if the 1787 Constitution had never been signed, and we have no national government.

Around the world, allies are registering that in an emergency, when it matters most, the United States has utterly failed to lead

s the pandemic kills, as the economic depression tightens its grip, Donald Trump has consistently put his own needs first. Right now, when his only care should be to beat the pandemic, Trump is renegotiating his debts with his bankers and lease payments with Palm Beach County.

He has never tried to be president of the whole United States, but at most 46 percent of it, to the extent that serving even the 46 percent has been consistent with his supreme concerns: stealing, loafing, and whining.

Now he is not even serving the 46 percent. The people most victimized by his lies and fantasies are the people who trusted him, the more conservative Americans who harmed themselves to prove their loyalty to Trump.

Governments often fail. From Pearl Harbor to the financial crisis of 2008, you can itemize a long list of missed warnings and overlooked dangers that cost lives and inflicted hardship. But in the past, Americans could at least expect public spirit and civic concern from their presidents.

Trump has mouthed the slogan “America first,” but he has never acted on it. It has always been “Trump first.” His business first. His excuses first. His pathetic vanity first.

rump has taken millions in payments from the Treasury. He has taken millions in payments from U.S. businesses and foreign governments. He has taken millions in payments from the Republican Party and his own inaugural committee. He has taken so much that does not belong to him, that was unethical and even illegal for him to take. But responsibility? No, he will not take that.

Yet responsibility falls upon Trump, whether he takes it or not. No matter how much he deflects and insults and snivels and whines, this American catastrophe is on his hands and on his head.

raised some fresh worries about inflation and potentially overheating the economy. Republicans opposed the bill, attacking its price tag and calling many of its measures bloated or unnecessary and unrelated to the crisis.

Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and key cabinet secretaries plan to spend the coming weeks traveling around the country touting the package and explaining how the public can take advantage of its benefits, White House officials said. Ms. Psaki said the White House is planning interviews with local media outlets as well as a digital strategy related to the bill.

Like in previous packages, the full direct payments will go to individuals making as much as $75,000 and married couples making as much as $150,000, and the $300 weekly jobless-aid supplement lawmakers approved in December will continue through Sept. 6. Federal unemployment benefits had been set to begin expiring on March 14, spurring lawmakers to quickly approve the package.

The additional subsidies could mean lower premium payments for almost 14 million people insured on the individual market.

reconciliation also enabled Democrats to move forward with measures that Republicans oppose, including $350 billion in aid for state and local governments that Republicans have assailed as a political handout in excess of the budget hardships caused by the pandemic.

The bill will expand the child tax credit—increasing the benefit to $3,000 per child from $2,000, with a $600 bonus for children under age 6—make it refundable, and authorize periodic payments.

Lawmakers are expected to push to make the expansion, set to last through 2021, permanent.

After a push from centrist Democrats in the Senate, lawmakers did downsize some elements of the bill. The direct payments will go to zero for individuals with incomes of $80,000 and married couples with incomes of $160,000, a faster phase-down than in previous aid packages.

At $21.9 trillion as of March 1, the debt is roughly the size of the nation’s entire economic output, the highest since the aftermath of World War II.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect the aid package to propel the U.S. economy to its fastest annual growth in nearly four decades, boosting employment and reducing poverty while also reviving inflation. The economists expect the economy to grow 5.95%, measured from the fourth quarter of last year to the same period this year. The bill also puts roughly $86 billion into a new program to help multiemployer pension plans. The measure would allow the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to provide cash assistance to troubled multiemployer pension plans and ensure they continue paying benefits to retirees.