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The Wise Senior

Total Medicare 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.

Works offline — your inputs never leave this device. How that works

Estimated cost for the year$3,186
Which is, per month$265.47

Where the money goes

  • Part B premium

    $202.90 a month · $2,435 a year

    The standard premium set by CMS for this year.
  • Part D drug plan

    $38.99 a month · $468 a year

    your figureThe figure you entered. Plan prices vary; compare at medicare.gov.
  • Part B deductible

    $283 a year

    Paid once a year, before Part B starts sharing costs.

The same year, both ways

  • Original Medicare with a supplement

    $3,186 for the year

    More of the cost sits in premiums you know in advance, and less of it arrives in the year you are ill.
  • A Medicare Advantage plan

    $2,435 for the year

    Less in premiums, more exposure to charges as you use care, stopping at the plan's in-network yearly maximum.

No verdict here, on purpose

These are two different shapes of cost, not a better and a worse option. The Original Medicare and Medigap route costs more in predictable premiums and less when you are ill; an Advantage plan costs less up front and exposes you to out-of-pocket costs up to its annual maximum. Which suits you depends on your health, your doctors, and how much you travel — none of which a calculator knows. Your state SHIP counselor will go through it with you free of charge.

What a hospital stay adds

Part A has its own deductible of $1,736 per benefit period — not per year, so two separate admissions far enough apart can each carry one. Days 61 to 90 add $434 a day, and a skilled nursing stay adds $217 a day from day 21 to day 100. None of that is in the total above unless you entered it as out-of-pocket costs.

What this total leaves out

  • Dental, vision, and hearing, which Original Medicare does not cover.
  • Long-term care, which Medicare does not cover at all.
  • What your prescriptions actually cost at the counter.
  • Anything you pay a provider who does not accept Medicare assignment.

Where to take a plan question

We take no money from any insurer and name none, so we are not the place to settle what you buy. These three are, and all of them are free.

🎓 Understand this tool

What it is

One yearly figure for what Medicare costs a household, built by adding the pieces that are normally published separately: the Part B premium and deductible, any IRMAA surcharge, a Part A premium if one is owed, and the drug or supplement premium the reader supplies.

How it works

Every fixed figure comes from a verified CMS pack for the current year. The IRMAA portion is computed from the income and filing status you enter, using the published tier amounts. The variable pieces — a Medigap premium, a drug plan premium, an Advantage premium and its out-of-pocket maximum — are yours to supply, because those prices depend on your state, your age and your insurer, and quoting one would put this site on the selling side of a line it does not cross.

Getting the most from it

  1. Enter the income Medicare uses — the adjusted gross income plus tax-exempt interest from your return of two years ago — and the filing status on that return.
  2. Pick the shape you are modeling: Original Medicare with a supplement, or a Medicare Advantage plan. The two are different arrangements of the same costs rather than a better and a worse option.
  3. Type in the premiums you actually pay, or the figures you have been quoted. Anything you supply is labeled as yours in the breakdown, so you can see which parts are published and which are not.
  4. Model a heavier year by entering expected out-of-pocket costs. Under an Advantage plan those stop at the plan's in-network maximum, which is the whole point of that maximum existing.
  5. Read the exclusions list beside the total before you use the number for anything — dental, vision, hearing and long-term care sit outside it.

Reading your result

The total is a yearly estimate assembled from published figures and the ones you entered, with the monthly average shown beside it. Where two shapes are compared, the gap between them is arithmetic, not a recommendation: it says which arrangement costs less in the year you described, and says nothing about the year you will actually have.

What it can't tell you

It cannot price a supplement or an Advantage plan for you, cannot know your health, your doctors, or how much you travel, and does not include dental, vision, hearing, long-term care, what your prescriptions cost at the counter, or charges from a provider who does not accept Medicare assignment. For a decision rather than a total, your state SHIP counselor is free and takes no commission.

Frequently asked questions

There is no single published figure, which is why this estimator exists. It adds the Part B premium and deductible, any IRMAA surcharge from your income two years ago, a Part A premium if you have to buy one, and whatever you pay for drug or supplement cover. The total is an estimate built from figures you can check.

Part of: What Medicare Actually Costs in a Year

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