The Ledger·July 2026

2026 Medicare Part B: the new numbers and what they do to an early retirement

Part B is $202.90 a month per person in 2026 — and it is one of four layers.

The 2026 Medicare numbers are set. CMS announced them in November 2025 — the Federal Register notice is dated November 19, 2025 — and we re-verified every figure below against the CMS fact sheet on the day Case 001 rendered.

One thing you will not find in this post is a comparison with last year. We did not verify the prior-year figures, so they do not appear — that is the house rule, and it applies even when a comparison would make a better headline.

One layer of four

FACT For a couple, the standard Part B premium alone is 2 × $202.90 × 12 — $4,869.60 a year.

That $4,869.60 is one layer, and it is the only layer most headlines quote. A complete Medicare budget has to price four:

1. Part B premiums — the $4,869.60 above.
2. Drug coverage — a Part D plan.
3. Supplemental coverage — a Medigap policy or a Medicare Advantage plan.
4. Out-of-pocket — deductibles, coinsurance, copays, dental, vision.

Medicare's own cost page is explicit that drug and supplemental costs vary by plan, which is why we will not hand you a single national number for the stack. FACT And none of the four layers includes long-term custodial care, which Medicare generally does not pay for.

The enrollment trap when you delay Social Security

FACT Medicare enrollment is not always automatic. The initial enrollment period generally opens three months before the month you turn 65, includes your birthday month, and closes three months after it. Whether enrollment happens on its own depends in part on Social Security timing — Medicare's official sign-up tool specifically asks whether you plan to receive Social Security at least four months before turning 65.

That question matters to early retirees, because delaying Social Security is often the strategy worth testing. Case 001's strongest stress-path strategy has both spouses claiming at 67 — which means arriving at 65 with no Social Security in payment, and no basis for assuming Medicare starts itself. Enrollment responsibility has to be verified before 65, not discovered after it.

What this does to an early retirement budget

Retiring at 62 makes healthcare two problems in sequence: the bridge years before 65, priced on the Marketplace, and Medicare from 65 on. Case 001 carries both as labeled assumptions, never as averages — ASSUMPTION $18,000 a year for the household across ages 62–64, and $13,000 a year from 65.

The bridge assumption moves the outcome meaningfully — though less than lifestyle spending does in this case:

The 2026 figures above anchor the post-65 line. ASSUMPTION The case's $13,000 is intended to cover Part B plus some combination of drug coverage, supplemental premiums, copays, dental, and vision — and actual cost can vary substantially. It is a placeholder for a real quote, not a prediction, and the case file's own standard applies: a real local quote must replace the assumption before anyone resigns.

The full healthcare research — including which retirement withdrawals count as Marketplace income in the bridge years — lives at Decision 04: Healthcare before and after 65. The free Retirement Stress Test lets you set both healthcare budgets yourself and watch the ending balance respond.

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Mark and Diane are fictional composites. Model outputs are deterministic illustrations under stated assumptions — not forecasts or guarantees. Nothing here is individualized financial, tax, insurance, or healthcare advice.