BUSINESS

UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer, has unveiled 1,700 diagnostic codes that will no longer need prior approval, effective October 1.

The old adage that the rest of the world sneezes when the U.S. catches a cold very much applies to bonds as well.

“I am frustrated and financially exhausted from continuing to invest my own money into these properties.”

Health insurance costs have been punishing self-employed workers and small business owners all year. Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace premiums have climbed sharply as federal subsidies expired, and millions of freelancers, gig workers, and sole proprietors have been absorbing the full hit with no relief in sight.

A new proposal out of Washington is trying to fix that. It is narrower than a full ACA overhaul and it still has legal and regulatory hurdles to clear. But for the workers it targets, the potential savings are real enough to pay attention to.

What the Labor Department association health plans rule means for self-employed workers

The Trump administration’s Labor Department submitted a draft rule to the White House that would expand access to health insurance through membership organizations and trade associations.

Depending on how the final rule is written, it could open a path to significantly lower premiums for millions of workers who currently have no alternative to the individual ACA marketplace, CNBC reported.

The rule addresses the definition of “employer” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. A broader definition would allow more associations to sponsor health plans on behalf of their members, pooling freelancers, contractors, and small business owners into larger risk groups that can negotiate the kind of rates only larger employers currently access, according to CNBC.

Related: Jeff Bezos sends stunning message to American workers

Unsubsidized ACA coverage is expensive. A gig worker outside the subsidy range can be writing a check for $700 to $900 every month just to stay covered, KFF noted. Association plans have historically come in cheaper.

That gap is not an abstraction for someone in that position. It is the difference between having health insurance and not having it.

The draft was received by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Aug. 11 and is currently under White House review. The administration has not yet released the full text, so the exact scope of the changes will become clearer once a formal proposed rule goes out for public comment, according to CNBC.

Why freelancers and small business owners stand to benefit most

Employees of major companies already have this solved. Their employer handles it.

The people who get left out are those who earn too much to qualify for subsidy help but not enough to absorb what individual market coverage actually costs. That middle group has been stuck for years with no good answer.

Freelancers, sole proprietors, and gig economy workers fall squarely in that gap. So do small business owners with fewer than 50 employees, who are not required to offer coverage under the ACA employer mandate and often find it too expensive to do so voluntarily, according to CNBC.

Association plans give those groups a way in. A graphic designer who belongs to a creative professionals association, a plumber affiliated with a trade group, or an Uber driver organized through a rideshare workers organization could all potentially access group-rate coverage that was previously unavailable.

That is the practical upside of what the Labor Department is working toward — lower premiums for people who have been absorbing the full cost of individual market coverage on their own, CNBC indicated.

A Labor Department draft rule addresses the definition of “employer” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.Momo/Getty Images

What workers need to know before getting too excited

The good news comes with some important context. The Trump administration tried something nearly identical in 2018, and a federal judge vacated key provisions of that rule in 2019, finding that the administration had stretched ERISA’s definition of “employer” beyond what the law allowed.

The Biden administration formally rescinded what remained of that rule in April 2024, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA). The current proposal would not revive the old rule. It would start over with a new attempt to reach the same destination through a legally defensible path.

The current proposal is being written with that court ruling in mind, but whether it survives a legal challenge is an open question. Critics of the earlier effort also argued that association plans can carry coverage gaps that enrollees do not always spot until they actually need care, according to FierceHealthcare.

The proposal has not been finalized, and no implementation date has been set. Workers should not expect immediate changes.

What they should do is follow how the rule develops over the coming months, particularly once the public comment period opens and the full text becomes available.

What employers and benefits advisers should watch next

Small business owners should watch this closely. If it clears the legal hurdles, the rule would rewrite the math on what a small employer without a dedicated HR department or a six-figure benefits budget can actually offer workers.

Benefits advisers and HR professionals should start monitoring which associations in their industries are positioning to sponsor plans if the rule moves forward. The gap between what is theoretically available under association plans and what workers currently pay on the individual market is large enough that demand will be real the moment the path becomes clear.

The midterms are close. Healthcare costs are a top issue. The administration is not going to let this sit on a shelf if it can help it.

The legal obstacles are still real, but the political clock is ticking, and that tends to speed things up.

Related: Fidelity warns American workers on 401(k), IRA mistakes

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Why we love this deal

Why spend time searching and securing individual cookware and kitchen accessories when you can grab everything you need in one fell swoop? With multi-piece sets available pretty much everywhere these days, it’s a no-brainer to invest in a matching set of pots and pans when the right one comes along. Not only does it provide you with a cohesive set of cookware crafted with the same colors and material, but it saves you the time you’d usually spend hunting down each individual frying pan, sauce pot, and lid. And when you can get sets like the Our Place Ceramic Cookware Set for less, it’s even better. 

The 11-piece multi-metal set originally retails for $350, and while that’s certainly on par pricewise for items of such great quality, right now it’s on sale for 49% off during a limited-time deal at Amazon. Available in both a smaller and a larger size, you can choose the right one for your kitchen, securing versatile pots, pans, and matching lids, along with a few fun other pieces, for just $179. 

Our Place Ceramic Cookware Set, $179 (was $350) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

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Why do shoppers love it?

What’s great about this set is that you get both cookware and a mechanism to help store them all in. The full 11-piece set includes 10-inch frypan, a 3-quart saucepan, a 4-quart-sauté pan, and a 7-quart stock pot, all which come with matching lids, along with a strainer basket, and two storage racks. The silicone storage racks provide slots for easy insertion and removal of the pots, pans, and lids, helping you keep your cabinets better organized. 

The set is made primarily with aluminum that has a ceramic nonstick coating that better preserves its quality over time, although the strainer basket is made of stainless steel. Aluminum is an excellent conductor of heat, making it a popular choice in cookware. Not only is it lightweight, allowing you to more easily move around and maneuver the kitchen when you’re holding a pot or pan, but it transfers heat quickly across the entire pan’s surface, preventing hot spots and ensuring that your food cooks evenly and uniformly. The ceramic coating gives it a glossy finish but also keeps food sticking to the pan. It allows you to cook with less oil and butter, since food can slide easily out, and it makes cleaning up far more simple. Our Place uses a special non-toxic coating, made and trademarked by the brand that’s designed to last 50% longer than traditional ceramic nonstick coatings and it’s PFAS-, PTFE-, lead-, and cadmium-free. 

With such a variety in the types of cookware available in this set, the cooking opportunities are endless. You can make pancakes, soups, stews, pastas, and other dishes with ease, and you move your pans and pot from the stovetop to the oven seamlessly since they are oven-safe up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Related: Cookware sets that bring more to the table for less

Available in four colors, this single set that’s perfect for roasting, baking, frying, sauteeing and experimenting even more in the kitchen is great for someone just starting out in their own place or even the veteran chef whose usual cookware has become dull, tarnished, and ineffective. 

Details to know

Material: Aluminum, stainless steel, and ceramic coating.

Includes: The set includes a 10-inch frypan with a glass lid, a 3-quart saucepan with a lid, a 4-quart-sauté pan with a lid, a 7-quart stock pot with a lid, a strainer basket, and two silicone storage racks. 

Set sizes: The cookware is available in an 8-piece, 11-piece, and 17-piece set.

Colors: Four.

Care: The set is dishwasher- and oven-safe. 

“Out with the old and in with the amazing,” is how one shopper described this cookware set. “Easy to clean, non-stick, and even the lids are high quality.” The storage racks that are included with the set are so helpful for organizational purposes, and the cookware itself is super easy and great to cook with. “Look and feel like luxury,” another shopper said. 

Shop more deals 

Astercook 21-Piece Pots and Pans Set, $60 (was $100) at Amazon

Carote 26-Piece Pots and Pans Cookware Set, $140 (was $220) at Amazon

Cuisinart Chef’s Classic 11-Piece Stainless Steel Pots and Pans Set, $130 (was $180) at Amazon

Amazon’s latest sale means you can get a relatively pricey pick for almost half off. Get the $350 Our Place Ceramic Cookware Set for only $179 before this limited-time deal is gone for good.

New research suggests people still value discovery even when AI can provide instant answers, revealing why exploration may remain vital for learning, creation, and work!

Threats have a shelf life.

Say you will do something by Friday, and Friday comes and goes without you doing it, and the people you were trying to frighten stop being frightened. They start doing arithmetic instead. They work out how much time they actually have, what the real cost would be, and whether you were ever going to follow through in the first place.

That is true in a schoolyard. It is true in a labor negotiation, and in a divorce, and in every situation where one side has more power than the other and both sides know the clock is the only thing that really matters.

It is also true in the plumbing of the global financial system, where the sharpest weapon the United States owns is not a carrier group. It is a phone call telling a foreign bank it can no longer touch American dollars. No shots, no headlines, just an account that stops working on a Tuesday morning.

For six months that weapon has been pointed at Tehran, and the volume has kept rising. The war passed its half-year mark. Military strikes gave way to financial ones. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stood in his department’s Cash Room on Aug. 24 and launched a campaign the administration branded an economic D-Day, saying he expected a major financial institution to be cut off by the end of that week.

The week ended. The major financial institution did not arrive. What arrived was a proposed rule aimed at the Emirati branches of an Egyptian lender, which is a considerably smaller thing.

On Sunday, Aug. 30, Bessent said the real one is coming this week, and he described the campaign in words no Treasury secretary reaches for lightly.

“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent said in an interview with the Associated Press. “We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop.”

He did not name the bank.

Bessent told the Associated Press on Aug. 30 that another bank faces sanctions this week.Melissa Sue Gerrits / Getty Images

Why the dollar system is Washington’s sharpest Iran weapon

Sanctions on Iran are not new. They are among the most heavily layered regimes on earth, and Tehran has spent decades building ways around them. What changed in 2026 is not the existence of pressure but where Washington is applying it.

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The target now is correspondent banking, the least glamorous and most important part of international finance. A bank in Dubai or Shanghai cannot settle dollar payments on its own. It needs an account at a U.S. institution to clear them. Take that account away and the bank still exists, but it can no longer move the currency most of the world’s oil is priced in.

That is the pressure point, and it is why oil sits underneath all of this. China has historically bought roughly 90% of Iran’s exported crude, which makes Chinese banks the load-bearing wall of the entire evasion network. Sanction one of them and you are not sanctioning Iran. You are sanctioning the second-largest economy in the world.

Related: Why Bessent’s Iran strategy looks like a work in progress

The waterway carrying the oil remains the wild card. Roughly six million to eight million barrels a day are still moving through the Strait of Hormuz despite the absence of any peace agreement, according to Trading Economics, well below what the passage normally handles.

I covered the launch of this campaign the week it happened, and the thing I flagged then still holds. Washington is not trying to make oil expensive. It is trying to make Iran poor without making oil expensive, and those two goals fight each other constantly.

What Bessent actually said about the next bank sanction

Bessent spoke to the AP ahead of Group of 20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina, where he will meet one on one with counterparts from the world’s major and developing economies to push for cooperation against Iran. He said he would raise Iranian oil purchases directly with his Chinese counterparts, and that “all options are on the table” in terms of sanctioning Beijing, according to the Associated Press.

He also pushed back on the idea that the administration has been reluctant to confront China, calling that “a completely false narrative that the media picked up on.”

Here is where the gap between the language and the mechanism gets interesting. I pulled the actual filing Treasury put out on Friday, Aug. 28, and it is not a sanction. It is a notice of proposed rulemaking under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, finding the five United Arab Emirates branches of Banque Misr to be of primary money laundering concern.

The details are worth reading closely:

Those branches processed approximately $1.8 billion for 103 companies potentially tied to Iranian shadow banking networks between January 2024 and June 2026, according to the Treasury Department.

Roughly $520 million of that total fell within the most recent 12 months, per the FinCEN notice of proposed rulemaking.

The rule carries a 30-day public comment period before it can take effect, the Treasury Department said, as reported by the Associated Press.

The measure applies only to the bank’s UAE branches and only to its dollar transfers, according to a Central Bank of Egypt statement reported by PBS NewsHour.

The sequencing tells you something. A Section 311 rulemaking is slower and more procedural than a designation from the Office of Foreign Assets Control. It goes out for comment. It gets negotiated. Two central banks, Egypt’s and the UAE’s, were coordinating a response within days.

My read is that Treasury picked a target it could afford to hit. Banque Misr is Egypt’s second-largest bank, and Egypt is not going to retaliate against the United States. The banks clearing Iranian oil money at scale sit in a country that can.

What the Iran sanctions fight means at your gas pump

None of this stays abstract, because the transmission line runs straight to the pump.

Oil climbed Monday, Aug. 31, after U.S. forces struck Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, the first American military action there in weeks. Brent rose to about $90.69 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate to roughly $85.54, gains near 3% on the day, according to Trading Economics.

Drivers are already carrying the earlier moves. The national average for a gallon of regular sat at $4.08 on Aug. 31, and the average stayed above $4 every single day of August for the first time on record, according to AAA, making it the most expensive August at the pump the country has ever had.

That is the part of this story that shows up in your budget rather than your news feed. A campaign designed to strangle Iranian revenue also squeezes the supply route, and the risk premium lands on American households before it lands on Tehran.

The next few days will tell you which version of this campaign Washington is actually running. If the bank Bessent sanctions this week is another regional lender in a friendly jurisdiction, the message to Tehran is that the dollar system has limits it will not cross. If it is Chinese, the calculation changes for every commodity desk and every driver in the country, and the arithmetic Iran has been doing since Friday stops working.

Related: Bessent just declared an ‘economic D-Day’ on Iran

TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Why we love this deal

Not everyone has a sprawling living room that can accommodate seats for a crowd. People living in dorms or studio apartments have to make the most of their space. One way to really preserve precious real estate in your living area is to kill two birds with one stone with your couch.

The $234 Maxyoyo Loveseat Sofa Bed is on sale at Amazon for only $222, and it’s an excellent addition to cramped living rooms or guest rooms. Shoppers love this versatile couch, calling it “comfortable and sturdy.”

Maxyoyo Loveseat Sofa Bed, $222 (was $234) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

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Why do shoppers love it?

Sofa beds have their retractors, and with good reason. That ubiquitous metal bar in many sofa beds is an absolute pain to contend with and not exactly anyone’s idea of “cozy.” This sofa bed acts more like a futon, with a modular design that folds out quickly and easily anytime you want to take a nap, get your daily eight hours, or just want to kick back with extra legroom.

When it’s in couch mode, it comfortably accommodates two people, with a removable center armrest that makes room for a smaller person, child, or pet. However, the removable armrest does have two built-in cupholders, which make it perfect for movie night. There are also two super soft pillows that would make excellent backrests when seated or for cradling your head when sleeping.

Related: Walmart’s $500 velvet sectional sofa is on sale for $199

The pillows, armrest, and seat of this couch are lined in a soft corded fabric that requires no additional sheets or comforters to be cozy. The fabric is breathable, comfortable, friction-resistant, and even skin-friendly. But of course, like in any mattress and with people, “it’s what’s inside that counts.”

The inside of this sofa bed is made of high-density memory foam, which is firm enough to be supportive but with enough give that it cradles your body whether you sleep on your stomach, side, or back. Switching this couch from sofa to bed takes minutes, if not seconds, and almost feels like a game of real-life Tetris.

Details to know

Couch dimensions: 37.4 inches long by 63.8 inches wide by 29.5 inches high.

Bed dimensions: 75.6 inches long by 63.8 inches wide by 13.5 inches high.

Colors: Beige, black, dark gray, and green.

This couch arrives compressed, and once it’s free from its vacuum-sealed packaging, shoppers are advised to let it “breathe” for up to 72 hours, where it will inflate to its maximum size. And while this couch is available in four different charming colors, the deepest discount is on the black couch. However, all colors are available for a fairly impressive discount.

Shop more deals

Kstnluxq 79-Inch Convertible Sofa Bed, $330 (was $350) at Amazon

Llappuil Modular Sectional Sofa, $189 (was $500) at Walmart

The Maxyoyo Loveseat Sofa Bed retails for $234, but you can shop it at Amazon for only $222 for a limited time. 

With the video set at The Plaza Hotel in New York, Tommy Hilfiger just released its new commercial starring Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

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