President Joe Biden on Friday rolled out a new set of initiatives to reduce health care costs: a crackdown on what he called “junk” insurance plans that play consumers as ‘suckers,’ new guidance to prevent surprise medical bills and an effort to reduce medical debt tied to credit cards. Biden is building on previous initiatives to limit health care costs, with the Department of Health and Human Services releasing new estimates showing 18.7 million older adults and other Medicare beneficiaries...

Millennials are ditching their parents' basements and using their socked away cash to buy some pretty lavish homes. USA TODAY WASHINGTON — U.S. existing home sales slipped 0.4 percent in May, as the prolonged shortage of properties on the market is deterring home-buying. The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 5.43 million in May, the second straight monthly decline. Sales have tumbled 3 percent over the past year, despite...

What was once the picture of the American dream may now be out of reach for many Americans. Here's why. USA TODAY WASHINGTON — A surge of construction in the Midwest drove U.S. housing starts up 5 percent in May from the prior month. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.35 million, the strongest pace since July 2007. All of May's construction gains came from a 62 percent jump in the Midwest, while building slumped in the...

The nation's largest homebuilder is rolling out the welcome mat for Amazon's Alexa. See the high-tech bells and whistles being built into new Lennar homes. USA TODAY WASHINGTON — U.S. home prices climbed in March with buyers paying a premium for ownership as the number of properties up for sale declines, and mortgage rates increase. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday increased 6.8 percent in March from a year earlier. The sharpest gains were in Seattle,...

The nation's largest homebuilder is rolling out the welcome mat for Amazon's Alexa. See the high-tech bells and whistles being built into new Lennar homes. USA TODAY WASHINGTON — U.S. sales of existing homes tumbled 2.5% in April — with the costs of buying a home jumping and would-be buyers facing a persistent shortage of properties on the market. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that homes sold last month at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 5.46 million, down from 5.60...