|
☕ DrinkCoffeeAndProfit
Smart money moves before breakfast
|
|
Inspiration Quote for the Day
“Not to decide is to decide.”
Harvey Cox
|
|
|
The Morning Ritual
Pearl Will Renew a Plan She Has Not Read in Four Years
|
A neighbour of mine keeps a drawer for envelopes that look official and feel boring. One of them is landing this week. Pearl has put the same letter in that drawer four years running.
It is the one piece of mail all year that sets what her coverage costs in January. Doing nothing with it is not neutral. Doing nothing is a choice the plan makes for her.
|
|
· · · Partner Message · · ·
Next time you’re in Target or Walgreens, look at the coffee aisle.
The Juan Valdez bags on that shelf move through Green Coffee Company, Colombia’s largest producer and the exclusive U.S. and Canada distributor of the brand.
3,000+ stores. 21 states. $26M in revenue last year.
The part you can’t see on the shelf: the company is still private, and shares are $1.10.
Our share price is changing after September 30th.
Private investments are speculative and illiquid. Returns are not guaranteed. Review the offering circular before investing.
Under Regulation A, a company may change its share price by up to 20% without requalifying the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
|
|
|
In One Sip
► Every Medicare Advantage and stand-alone drug plan must mail its Annual Notice of Change by September `30`. Source: CMS rules, `2026`.
► That letter lists next year’s premium, deductible, covered drugs and provider network. Open enrollment then runs October `15` to December `7`. Source: Medicare.gov.
► Anything changed in that window starts January `1`. Plans may publish `2027` prices and networks from October `1`, which gives two weeks to compare. Source: CMS plan schedule, `2026`.
► A temporary federal programme held stand-alone drug plan premiums down in `2025` and `2026`. It is ending, so some premiums are moving up for `2027`. Source: CMS.
► The quiet part: if the letter goes in a drawer, the plan renews itself at whatever it now costs and covers. Source: Medicare.gov.
|
|
|
Why It Matters for Your Money
Four things inside that envelope can move without anyone calling you. The premium. The deductible. Which of your drugs is still on the list, and on which tier. Whether your doctor and your pharmacy are still in the network.
Any one of them can undo a plan that fitted perfectly last year. A drug sliding one tier is the quiet one. Same pill, same plan, different share.
The sequence is the part worth knowing. The letter arrives before the window opens, not during it. That gap is the only reason seven weeks is enough time to do anything about it.
Read it this weekend and you get a fortnight to compare before enrolment even starts. Read it in November and you are choosing in a hurry, against a deadline, with the phone ringing.
|
|
|
· · · Partner Message · · ·
Company A: almost no revenue, zero plants running, valued near $10 billion in the biggest clean-energy IPO in history. Company B: sixty years of operations, nearly $1 billion in annual revenue, two decades of uninterrupted dividends, a 15-year Google contract, still priced like a utility. One of those prices is wrong. With a federal land auction on October 20th and solar and wind’s tax credits terminating while geothermal’s run through 2033, the correction may not wait long.
This is an advertisement.
|
|
|
The Wealth Angle
Two things can be true. Automatic renewal is a kindness, because coverage does not lapse when a date is missed. It also means the only person checking whether the plan still suits you is you.
Every default in a household works this way. The insurance that renews, the subscription that rolls, the plan that carries over. None of them are scams. All of them are quietly repriced by someone who is not sitting at your table.
My own habit is a single afternoon in the year. Everything that renews on its own gets read once, in one sitting, before the season when the deadlines stack up.
The tool for this one is free and it is the government’s own. Plan Finder on medicare.gov takes your actual medications. It then shows the full year cost of each plan, not the headline premium.
|
|
|
☕ Key Insight:
The envelope arrives in September and the window opens in October. That order is deliberate. The letter is meant to be read before the choosing starts. Almost no household uses it that way.
|
|
|
Coffee Break Move
If you are comfortable: Find the letter and mark four lines. Premium, deductible, your drug list, your doctors. Then write October `15` and December `7` on the calendar. Fifteen minutes now, and the rest of autumn is comparing rather than scrambling.
If you are stretched: Call your plan and ask them to walk you through what is changing on your own drugs. It is their letter and they have to explain it. Free counselling exists in every state through the SHIP programme, and it costs nothing to use.
Pearl is going to open that drawer eventually. The only question is whether she opens it this weekend, or in the week the deadline runs out.
|
|