What does Medicare actually cost in a year?

Most people pay the standard Part B premium, and some pay more because of an income surcharge called IRMAA that Social Security calculates from a tax return you filed two years earlier. On top of the premiums there are deductibles, Part D drug costs, and — if you enrolled late without qualifying coverage — a penalty that is added to your premium for as long as you have Medicare. Our Medicare wing works out the whole year, one line at a time, from the CMS documents that set each figure.

When should I start taking Social Security?

There is no single right age, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Starting at 62 permanently reduces the monthly check; waiting until 70 permanently raises it. Break-even math tells you when the later start overtakes the earlier one on paper, but it cannot tell you about a survivor benefit, a shorter or longer life than average, or a job you may not keep. Our Social Security wing shows the comparison and is equally plain about what the comparison leaves out.

Does this site sell Medicare plans?

No. We do not sell insurance, we take no commissions from anyone, and we do not offer, rank, or recommend any Medicare plan — not now and not later. For choosing between plans, the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov, 1-800-MEDICARE, and your free state SHIP counselor are the unbiased places to go, and every page here points you to them.

Do you keep the numbers I type in?

No. Every calculator runs entirely inside your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to us, to an analytics service, or to anyone else, there is no account to create, and there is no phone-number field anywhere on this site.

54 verified data packs — every figure cited to the document that set it

What Medicare costs. When to take Social Security.

Two decisions set the floor under everything else in retirement, and both are decided from documents written for people who already know the vocabulary. This site does the arithmetic in plain language and large type, shows you the source of every number, and tells you where the number came from and when we last checked it.

The rules here are genuinely complicated. That is the system's doing, not yours.

Start with the decision you are facing

What Medicare Costs

What Medicare actually costs you in a year — the Part B premium, the IRMAA surcharge that surprises higher-income retirees two years after the fact, Part D, deductibles, and the late-enrollment penalties that never go away. Every figure comes from the CMS document that set it, with the year it took effect printed beside it.

Open Medicare Costs →

When to Take Social Security

The claiming-age decision, worked honestly. Compare what 62, your full retirement age, and 70 actually pay using the benefit figure on your own Social Security statement — plus the break-even math and its limits, the survivor benefit most calculators ignore, the earnings test, and how much of your benefit is taxable.

Open Social Security →

How this site is different from the ones that found you first

If you have searched for any of this before, you have probably been asked for your phone number two or three times already. Here is what we do instead, and each of these is checked by an automated test every time the site is built — not a promise on a page, a condition of shipping.

No commissions, ever

We do not sell insurance and we take no money from anyone who does. We do not offer, rank, or recommend any Medicare plan, which means nothing on this site has a reason to point you anywhere but the truth.

We never ask for your phone number

There is no phone field anywhere on this site, on any page, in any form. Nobody is going to call you because you used a calculator here.

Your numbers stay in your browser

Every calculation happens on your own device. Your income, your benefit amount, and your birth date are never sent to us or to anyone else, and there is no account to create.

How we are funded · How every figure is checked · Every source we use

The ones people use most

Pin any calculator with the marker in its corner and it will wait for you here.

IRMAA Calculator

IRMAA is the income-related surcharge added to your Medicare Part B and Part D premiums when the tax return you filed two years ago showed income above a threshold. Enter that income and your filing status to estimate your tier, the monthly and yearly surcharge, and exactly how many dollars sit between you and the next cliff.

Break-even

Enter the benefit printed on your own Social Security statement and see the age at which claiming later overtakes claiming earlier, in plain cumulative dollars and again weighted by the chance of living to collect. This is an estimate, and the panel beside it names the four things a break-even age cannot tell you.

Enrollment Dates

Your seven-month Medicare sign-up window is worked out from your birthday, and being born on the first of a month shifts the whole thing a month earlier. Enter your date of birth to estimate your own dates, see when coverage would start, and download them to your calendar. No email address required.

And the two questions that follow

Paying for Care

What home care, assisted living, and nursing homes cost in your state, and — the part most cost calculators skip — who actually pays for each one. Medicare, Medicaid, VA Aid and Attendance, long-term care insurance, and out of pocket, laid out plainly, with the programs you may already qualify for.

Open Paying for Care →

Checklists & Dates

Print-first checklists and personalized date calendars: what to do the year you turn 65, what to re-check every fall during open enrollment, what to gather before helping a parent, and your own enrollment and claiming dates worked out from your birthday — downloadable to your calendar.

Open Checklists →

Every calculator

IRMAA Calculator

Roth Conversion → IRMAA

A Roth conversion counts as income, and Medicare sets your premium from the return you filed two years earlier. So a conversion made this autumn surfaces as a surcharge two Januarys later. Enter your income and the amount you are weighing to see which thresholds it crosses and what each step costs.

Part B Premium

The standard Medicare Part B premium and annual deductible for 2026, taken straight from the CMS notice that set them, with every year back to 2016 so you can see how fast this line item has actually risen. Higher earners pay more through IRMAA; this page shows the base figure everyone starts from.

Late Penalty Calculator

Sign up for Medicare Part B or Part D late and the surcharge is permanent. Enter how many months you went without each kind of coverage to estimate what the penalty adds every month, every year, and over a horizon you choose. Part B counts full twelve-month periods only, so partial years cost nothing.

Enrollment Dates

SSA-44 Walkthrough

Form SSA-44 is how you ask Social Security to base your Medicare surcharge on this year's income instead of the two-year-old tax return that triggered it. Here are the eight life-changing events that qualify, the evidence Social Security accepts for each one, and how the form is filed. Filing it is free.

Total Cost Estimator

Nobody publishes one number for what a year of Medicare costs a household, because the pieces live in separate documents. This estimator adds them: the Part B premium, any IRMAA surcharge, deductibles, and the drug or supplement premium you supply. Original Medicare and Advantage are shown as two shapes of cost, without a verdict.

Medigap vs Advantage

Medigap and Medicare Advantage do not cost more or less than each other — they put the cost in different places. One front-loads predictable premiums, the other front-loads less and exposes you to out-of-pocket charges up to a yearly maximum. Here is the structure of each, in figures CMS publishes, with no plan named.

Part D Costs

What Medicare drug coverage can cost you in a year, now that there is a hard ceiling on it. The cap, the most a plan may charge as a deductible, and the national figure that quietly sets the late-enrollment penalty, each taken from the CMS notice that published it. No plan is named or priced.

Break-even

62 vs 67 vs 70

See what claiming at 62, at your full retirement age, and at 70 would pay each month and each year, worked from the benefit figure on your own Social Security statement. Includes the break-even math between any two of them, and an honest account of what that break-even age leaves out. Estimate only.

Full retirement age

Your full retirement age is set by the year you were born, from 65 for people born before 1938 to 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Enter your birth year to see yours, the whole statutory table it comes from, and what claiming at 62 or at 70 would do to your benefit.

Taxes on benefits

Work out how much of your Social Security is taxable, using the combined-income test the IRS actually applies: your other income, plus any tax-exempt interest, plus half your benefits. Crossing a threshold taxes only the amount above it, up to 85%, which makes it a bracket rather than the cliff Medicare's income surcharge uses. Estimate only.

Survivor benefits

When one spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two Social Security benefits, not both. Enter what each of you receives to see the household income that would remain, the monthly drop in each case, and how the higher earner's claiming age sets the survivor's floor for life. Estimate only.

Earnings test

If you claim Social Security before full retirement age and keep working, some of your benefit is withheld once your earnings pass the annual limit. Enter your expected earnings to see how much. The part people are rarely told: what is withheld is added back to your monthly benefit at full retirement age. Estimate only.

Payment Dates

Social Security pays on a Wednesday decided by the day of the month you were born, so two people in one household are often paid on different days. Enter that day to see every payment date for the year, the date to wait until before calling, and why a spouse follows a different schedule.

Savings Programs

Four programs pay the Medicare premiums of people with limited income, and a fifth pays most drug costs. Answer two questions to see where your figures sit against the federal limits for QMB, SLMB, QI and QDWI, plus Part D Extra Help. Those federal numbers are a floor many states exceed, so this is an estimate, never a decision.

Aid and Attendance

Aid and Attendance is paid as the gap between a maximum yearly pension rate and your income for VA purposes — and unreimbursed medical expenses above five percent of that rate come off your income first. This estimate shows both figures, so you can see why people in assisted living qualify. Not legal advice; accredited representatives help free.

Care Costs

What in-home care, adult day programs, assisted living and nursing homes cost in your state, converted to monthly and yearly figures from the hours you actually expect to use. The survey publishes each kind of care in a different unit, so the arithmetic that makes them comparable is ours, and it is printed beside every number. Estimate only.

Funding Screener

Seven questions, none of them about who you are, and the answer is a list of offices rather than a verdict: Medicare Savings Programs, Medicaid long-term care, VA pension, your free state counselors, the area agency on aging, and an elder-law attorney if property is involved. Each one names who decides and what to bring. Estimate only, never a determination.

Funeral Costs

The national median for a funeral with viewing and burial, and for one with cremation, from the industry price survey — plus what those medians leave out and the federal rule that entitles you to an itemized price list you can keep. Education only: we do not sell, quote or refer burial insurance, and never will.

Look-Back

Medicaid examines a five-year window before an application, looking for gifts and property transfers, and one found there creates a penalty period that starts only once the money has already run out. Here is how that works, how fast a spend-down happens, and a printable worksheet. Not legal advice — your state agency decides.

Who Pays for What

Six care situations against the five payers that actually exist, with a plain verdict in every cell. The short version is that Medicare covers skilled care and not the custodial help most people eventually need, which is why one column is almost entirely empty and why so many households are caught out.

Final Expense Options

Four ways households cover a funeral, how each is structured, and what to check before committing to any of them. Includes the comparison nobody selling a policy shows you — total premiums against the death benefit — and the VA burial allowances that families routinely fail to claim. Estimate only; no insurer is named.

Turning 65 Checklist

A print-first sheet for the year you turn 65, ordered by deadline rather than by subject. Two of the items close doors that never reopen: the Part B late-enrollment penalty lasts for life, and the Medigap window that protects you from health underwriting happens once. Those sit at the top.

Annual Review Checklist

Twenty minutes each autumn, in order. Drug lists, networks, premiums and deductibles all change on January 1 whether or not anyone looked. Most years nothing needs to change — but that is only worth knowing if it was checked against the notice your plan already sent you in September.

Parent Care Checklist

A print-first sheet for helping a parent with their money and care, ordered by what stops being possible if you wait. The first block can only be signed while they still have capacity to sign it; after that the only route is a court guardianship. Everything else can be gathered later.

Ready to use right now

The free printable kit

Four large-print sheets to keep with your paperwork: the income-surcharge bracket card, a claiming-age worksheet, the enrollment checklist for the year you turn 65, and the Retirement Numbers Card. Free, by email.

Get the kit →

Who to ask for help

Pick the situation you are in and see who to call, what it costs, and what to have in front of you when you dial. Eight of the ten doors are free, and we earn nothing from any of them.

Find the right person →

The book series

The Wise Senior's Guide — large print, plainly written, with a new edition each year because nearly every figure in a book like this expires. Nothing is published yet, and the page says so.

See the shelf →

Scam shield

Medicare does not call people out of the blue. Here are the calls, letters, and packages that target people on Medicare, what they are actually after, and where to report them.

Guides

Long-form explanations of the parts that trip people up, each one ending at the calculator that answers it rather than at a sales page.

Plain-language glossary

What the letters actually mean — IRMAA, MAGI, FRA, SEP — written in the words a person would use out loud, with the official definition beside each one.

If your question is which coverage to pick

That question does not belong to us and never will. We explain what the parts of Medicare cost and how the costs are structured; choosing between what is offered in your county is a job for somewhere with no stake in your answer. There are three, all free:

Medicare Plan Finder (medicare.gov) — the official tool, which works from your own prescription list.
1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) — open around the clock, every day of the year.
Your state SHIP — free, unbiased counseling — one-to-one counseling from someone who is not paid on commission and has nothing to sell. National line: 877-839-2675.

Four emails a year, when the official numbers change

One email when the numbers change. Double opt-in, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.