Legal Notice

This notice serves to advise that Molina Healthcare will no longer be contracted with the Department of Medical Assistance Services in Virginia effective June 30, 2025.

Current Molina members should choose new health and prescription drug plans, or the Virginia Cardinal Care Managed Care program will choose one on their behalf effective July 1. To evaluate all options now, Molina members have until July 31 to make a new selection.

Following are the options current members can select:

Option 1: Integrated Dual Eligible Special Needs Plan (D-SNP). These plans are offered by private companies that contract with Medicare and with Department of Medical Assistance Services in Virginia. These plans cover all services that Original Medicare covers and prescription drugs. Some plans offer extra coverage such as vision, hearing or dental.

Option 2: You can join another Medicare Advantage health plan. Medicare health plans are offered by private companies that contract with Medicare to provide benefits. Medicare health plans cover all services that Original Medicare covers and may offer extra coverage such as vision, hearing, or dental.

Call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. TTY users can call 1-877-486-2048. Or, visit Medicare.gov to find out which Medicare health plans are in your area, or to choose a new Medicare health plan. The calls are free.

Option 3: You can change to Original Medicare. Original Medicare is coverage managed by the Federal Government. If you choose Original Medicare and don’t choose a prescription drug plan by June 30, Medicare will enroll you in a separate Medicare prescription drug plan. You will only be enrolled into the separate prescription drug plan if you don’t make another selection by June 30.

Medicare.gov offers tools to compare plans and answer questions. Details on coverage termination and selection will be communicated directly to Molina members in Virigina.


Around Town

Good Wednesday evening, Arlington. Let’s take a look back at today’s stories and a look forward to tomorrow’s event calendar.

🕗 News recap

The following articles were published earlier today — Apr 30, 2025.

📅 Upcoming events

Here is what’s going on Thursday in Arlington, from our event calendar.

⛈️ Thursday’s forecast

Expect a slight chance of showers from 2pm to 5pm, followed by possible showers and thunderstorms after 5pm. The day will be partly sunny with a high around 80 and a southeast wind of 6 to 10 mph; precipitation chance stands at 20%. On Thursday night, showers and thunderstorms could occur before 11pm and showers may continue until 2am. The night will be mostly cloudy with a low of 66 and an 8 mph southeast wind, with a 40% chance of precipitation. See more from Weather.gov.

💡 Quote of the Day

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

🌅 Tonight’s sunset

The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to discuss the day’s happenings in the comments.


Sponsored

This regularly scheduled column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. If you would like to work with Eli and his team in Northern Virginia and the greater D.C. Metro area, you can reach him directly at [email protected].

Question: How much of an impact do you think the ROAD to Housing Act will have on housing affordability in Arlington?

Answer: The Road to Housing Act became law ten days ago, with the stated goal of improving housing affordability in the United States.

I don’t see many policies in the Act that will improve affordability in the Arlington/Northern VA/DC Metro markets, outside of incentives for more affordable multi-family housing, but there are policies that should improve affordability in other markets that are more saturated with institutional investors that own swaths of single-family homes (e.g. Atlanta and Phoenix) and for manufactured/mobile homes.

The Local Conversation Needs to Change

If we are going to improve affordability in our market, most of the change has to be done locally/regionally, not nationally, but it requires a paradigm shift in how we discuss and solve for housing affordability.

Affordability Disconnect: Near Term Expectations Not Realistic
A disconnect between housing affordability expectations and reality prevents the right community and political conversations from happening. We expect/demand housing affordability immediately, ignoring the difficulty, and consequences, of achieving it that quickly.

Stable and healthy housing affordability is a long-term process requiring gradual change over a 10-15+ year period.

Demand-Side Solutions Won’t Work
Demand-side solutions, such as lower interest rates or easier financing, artificially inflate home values, as seen during the COVID-era housing boom and early 2000s. They are not a good long-term solution to affordability because they push values even higher (along with your property taxes) and affordability gets worse when rates/lending normalize and no longer provide artificially low monthly payments.

Supply-Side Solutions Are Not Immediate
Most policy discussions focus on supply-side solutions: building more/faster and denser housing (e.g. Arlington’s Missing Middle/Expanded Housing Option), incentivizing more existing home sales, or disincentivizing concentrated ownership by companies and individuals. Econ 101 tells us that more supply = lower prices = affordable housing (winner winner!).

This is the only path to stable, long-term housing affordability…BUT, at current interest rates, prices must drop 30-35% in the United States to become affordable, at current income levels. A 30-35% drop in home values would devastate the economy, so a supply-side solution won’t (shouldn’t) provide immediate affordability. (more…)


News

Hundreds more Arlington County residents began seeking work in March as federal layoffs continue to drive a region-wide surge in unemployment, new data shows.

A total of 4,929 Arlington residents were counted as without jobs and seeking work in March, the Virginia Employment Commission reported yesterday (Tuesday). That’s up 16% from the 4,249 recorded in February, and up a hefty 60% from 3,116 in March 2024.


Event

Join the Rosslyn BID and Arlington Arts at the 34th Rosslyn Jazz Fest 2026 featuring live jazz, food trucks, local vendors, and family-friendly activities in the heart of Rosslyn! This year’s lineup is bringing a diverse mix of performers and bands redefining the jazz music genre including Plena Libre, Sally Baby’s Silver Dollars, Parlor Greens, and Dogo du Togo & the Alagaa Beat Band.


Around Town

A new Turkish restaurant with kebab dishes and gyros is setting up shop in Rosslyn.

Capital Doner is “opening soon,” according to new storefront signs at 1731 Wilson Blvd, where The Simple Greek restaurant has closed.


News

Several schools were secured this morning after a report of shots fired in the Buckingham neighborhood near Ballston.

It happened just before 9:15 a.m. At least two 911 callers reported hearing gunfire and seeing a group of teens running from the area, according to scanner traffic.


News

A driver pinned after a crash caused their vehicle to flip has been extricated by firefighters.

The crash happened around 8:45 a.m. on Langston Blvd and N. Lexington Street, near Sloppy Mama’s BBQ. It’s unclear what caused the crash, which involved at least two vehicles, but it left one of the cars — a Subaru — on its roof and its driver reportedly pinned against the dashboard.


Schools

Arlington’s superintendent earns passing grades from the two Democratic candidates vying for a post on the School Board.

At an online candidate forum hosted by the Arlington NAACP, Monique “Moe” Bryant and June Prakash voiced support for Superintendent Francisco Durán but challenged other aspects of Arlington Public Schools leadership.