Found money!
Or even better ...
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Found money!
Is there any money better than found money?
All money is objectively worth the same as long as it’s the same currency. I mean, that’s the entire point of money!
Still, there’s something satisfying about finding money you didn’t know you had—whether it’s loose change under the sofa cushions, a $20 bill in your pocket when you take your jeans out of the dryer, or even a very tiny but completely unexpected royalty on a book you wrote literally 15 years ago.
(OK, that last example is fairly unique and autobiographical.)
But what if I were to tell you that Americans are sitting on an estimated $5 billion or more in found money, completely unaware—and that Walmart has figured out a smart, tech-savvy way to get them to spend at least some of it at Walmart?
That’s basically the story after Walmart announced this month that it’s rolling out a way for Medicare Advantage customers—of whom there are millions in the U.S.—to “identify plan-specific, benefits-eligible products while shopping on Walmart.com and the Walmart app.”
The key here is the phrase “plan-specific,” so customers with different health insurance providers won’t necessarily see the same items. To be sure, at launch, it seems there’s only one health plan set so far, NationsBenefits.
Walmart continued:
Customers will see a “benefits program eligible” badge on a broad assortment of items like OTC [over-the-counter], food and wellness products, which they can quickly add to their cart with one click.
Customers can also filter search results to include benefits-eligible items, streamlining and simplifying the shopping journey. For those shopping in-store, benefits-eligible badging will show up when scanning items in the Walmart app.
As an added functionality, Walmart will also keep track of how much customers have left to spend as a result of being a Medicare Advantage member.
How much found money are we talking about here?
Walmart says “two-thirds of Medicare Advantage members never use their OTC benefits, resulting in billions of dollars forfeited annually,” and a report that Walmart linked to in its announcement (.pdf) estimates that each year there are “nearly $5 billion in unused OTC allowances.”
The report goes on to paint OTC benefits as a smart way for health plans to gain and retain customers. That in turn leaves me wondering what happens if Walmart’s program (which it says is a “first… in retail,”) actually leads to a big number of customers realizing they have these benefits and using them at Walmart?
That might affect the economic assumptions of health plan providers.
In other words, if health plans: (a) offer $7.1 billion in OTC benefits but (b) also know from experience that customers normally use only 30 percent of it, then (c) they’re likely not planning to have to pay out the remaining $5 billion or so.
Now, their customers might be spending a bit more of that money—at Walmart.
There’s nothing wrong with that. These are people’s benefits, which they’ve paid for.
Besides, lots of companies do very good business finding ways to sell to customers when somebody else ultimately pays the bill.
All of which leads me to conclude that there is in fact something better than found money: other people’s found money.
7 other things worth knowing today
Huge question: Are we going to war with Iran? President Trump said Wednesday that he had not yet decided whether the U.S. military should join Israel's ongoing attacks on Iran: "I may do it, I may not do it, nobody knows what I'm going to do," Mr. Trump told reporters. He also said he didn't believe it was too late to reach a deal with the Islamic Republic on its nuclear program, though he warned it was "very late to be talking." An Iranian official warned earlier Wednesday that any U.S. intervention in the conflict with Israel would risk "all-out war," as the unprecedented exchange of fire with warplanes and ballistic missiles entered a sixth day. (CBS News)
A pair of lawmakers in California are seeking to ban law enforcement officers in the state from wearing face coverings, amid protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration's immigration policies. The "No Secret Police Act" would also require law enforcement officers to wear identifying information, one of the co-sponsors said: "We can’t tell if these are law enforcement officers or a vigilante militia. They are grabbing people off our streets and disappearing people, and it’s terrifying." (ABC News)
After Warner Bros. Discovery announced last week that it will split into two companies in 2026 -- "Streaming & Studios," which keeps profitable ventures like Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, DC Studios, HBO, and HBO Max, and "Global Networks," which takes things like CNN, TNT Sports and Discovery, the jobs and salaries of all of CNN's top talent are on the line: "Why, for instance, would [CNN] pay Anderson Cooper $18 million a year when Kaitlan Collins draws the same ratings at roughly a fifth of the salary?" (Daily Mail)
Elon Musk lashed out at his own AI chatbot, Grok, after it stated that right-wing violence has become “more frequent and deadly” since 2016 than left-wing attacks. Musk said it was a "major fail" that Grok reported that data suggests “right-wing political violence has been more frequent and deadly.” Grok added that while left-wing violence has also risen, as seen during 2020 protests, it tended to be “less lethal, often targeting property.” (Daily Beast)
An 80-year-old man drove a compact luxury Mercedes-Benz A Class sedan down the landmark Spanish Steps in Rome early on Tuesday before getting stuck part way down. Police said the man, a resident of Rome, was at a loss to explain how he had wound up driving down the famed steps. The man tested negative for alcohol, and was cited on the spot for driving down the monument in Rome’s historic center. The small sporty car was later removed by firefighters using a crane. (News Nation)
Rescuers fetched two men struck by lightning near the summit of Torreys Peak, a 14,300-foot mountain about 40 miles west of Denver, in what is believed to be the highest helicopter rescues on record in Colorado. One man remained hospitalized in fair condition while the other was treated at a hospital and released. “It doesn’t sound like they had a ton of prior experience. I think it was probably just a lack of awareness,” said one of the rescuers on the ground. (WLBT-TV)
A runaway pet zebra that was on the loose for more than a week in Tennessee and became an internet sensation in the process was captured last week. Ed the Zebra was captured safely after being located in a pasture near a subdivision in the Christiana community in central Tennessee. The sheriff's office said aviation crews captured the zebra. (NPR, YouTube)
Thanks for reading. Photo by Christian Kaindl on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.
Ed the zebra was and is today the best news reported today.
Regarding Ed the Zebra: I can picture it in my mind. Fella walking down a back road in rural Tennessee. He hears hoofbeats and remembers what he was taught in a college class -- "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." He turns to look. "Holy crap, it's a zebra!" The fella now questions everything he was ever taught in college...