Projected 2027 Medicare Premiums: What Florida Families Should Budget Before Open Enrollment
If your mom or dad is on Medicare, next year's budget started coming into focus this week. On Monday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published the 2027 plan landscape, its annual look at what Medicare Advantage and Part D drug plans will cost and cover. Most of it is good news.
One number is still missing, and it is the one that comes out of a Social Security check every month. CMS has not published the 2027 Part B premium, the Part B deductible, or the income thresholds that decide who pays a surcharge on top of it. Those usually land in November. Here is what is settled, what is not, and what is worth doing meanwhile.
What CMS confirmed this week
The headline numbers from that September 28 release:
- The average Medicare Advantage premium falls to $12.00 a month in 2027, down from $14.37 this year, a drop of about 16.5 percent.
- The average stand-alone Part D drug plan premium rises to $36 a month, from $35.09, and about eight in ten Medicare Advantage members can stay put at the same or a lower premium.
None of those averages is your parent's bill. Averages are national, and a plan in Miami-Dade does not price like a plan in Pensacola. Your mom or dad's number arrives in a document, not a news release, and that document has a deadline.
Two more 2027 figures are settled and final. The standard Part D deductible rises to $700 from $615, and the annual cap on out-of-pocket drug spending rises to $2,400 from $2,100, both set in CMS's April rate announcement. The deductible is where the plan starts paying; the cap is where it stops charging. Once your parent crosses the cap, covered drugs cost nothing for the rest of the year, and that is the number that matters if a specialty drug is in the picture.
The one number CMS has not published
The 2026 Part B standard premium is $202.90 a month, with a $283 deductible, both confirmed by CMS in November 2025. For 2027, all we have is a projection and a range.
The projection comes from the 2026 Medicare Trustees Report, released in June. Table V.E2 of that report puts the 2027 standard Part B premium at $209.50 a month, an increase of $6.60, or about 3.25 percent, and it puts the 2027 deductible at $292. If that number holds, 2027 would be the smallest Part B increase since 2023.
That projection has missed before. Last year's report projected $218.60 for 2027; this year's cut it by more than $9. Independent forecasters who follow this annually think the final number lands higher, around $216 to $219.
In household terms: $6.60 a month is about $79 a year. If the premium lands at $218 instead, the increase is $15.10 a month, or about $181 a year. The gap between the projection and the higher forecasts is roughly $100 a year for one person, close to $200 for a couple. On a fixed income that is a month of groceries, and it shows up in January whether or not anyone budgeted for it.
Two things matter more than the single figure. One quiet year is not a trend: the same Trustees table projects $224.50 for 2028 and $238.50 for 2029. And Part B premiums have outpaced the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment in seven of the past 10 years, according to The Senior Citizens League.
About 30 percent of people on Medicare are not protected from this
Federal law has a hold-harmless provision. If your parent's Part B premium is deducted from a Social Security check, the law limits the dollar increase in that premium to the dollar increase in their Social Security benefit. In 2016, when the COLA was zero, that meant the premium did not go up for those beneficiaries.
It applies to most people whose premiums come out of Social Security, "or roughly 70 percent of Part B enrollees," the report says. About 30 percent are not eligible, and the report names them: people who enroll during the year, people who do not receive Social Security checks, people paying the income-related surcharge, and people whose premiums are paid by Medicaid because they are dually eligible. If your parent is in one of those groups, the full increase lands on them.
The IRMAA cliff, and why this year is harder to forecast
Higher-income beneficiaries pay a surcharge on top of the standard premium. It is called IRMAA, and it is based on the tax return from two years earlier, so the 2025 return your parent filed this spring is what decides their 2027 surcharge. That part is locked in.
What is not locked in is where the thresholds fall. For 2026 the first threshold is $109,000 for a single filer and $218,000 for a joint return, per the Trustees Report. Analysts working the formula forward put 2027 at about $112,000 single and $224,000 joint, but those are projections, not published numbers.
This year the estimate is harder than usual for a specific reason. The Bureau of Labor Statistics could not collect October 2025 price data because of the federal government shutdown, and it says it "did not publish an all items ... estimate for October 2025" and cannot gather that data retroactively. That month feeds the index these thresholds are built from, and the brackets round to the nearest $1,000, so one missing data point can move a threshold by a full $1,000. That is why nobody can tell you today what the 2027 brackets will be.
What we do know is what the surcharges cost. The Trustees Report projects the first 2027 tier at $83.70 a month on top of the premium and the top tier at $502.60, with about 6.6 million beneficiaries paying one, up from 6.1 million this year. And IRMAA is a cliff, not a ramp: a single dollar over a threshold moves the whole surcharge to the next level.
What the Social Security raise will actually cover
Social Security announces the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment on October 14. The Senior Citizens League put the COLA at 3.5 percent in its September 11 update, down from 3.6 percent in August. AARP's latest projection is 3.6 percent. On the average benefit, the league puts the raise at about $68.
Against that, the Trustees' $6.60 increase takes roughly 10 percent of the raise, and $15.10 takes about 22 percent. Most of the raise survives either way. But the premium is one line item. Add the higher Part D deductible and a plan that moved a prescription to a pricier tier, and the household math looks different from the COLA headline.
What to check or do before October 15
- Read the Annual Notice of Change. It lists the 2027 premium, deductible, cost sharing, and any drug that changed tiers or dropped off the list. It is the only document with your parent's real numbers.
- Compare drug plans between October 15 and December 7. Changes made in that window take effect January 1. Look at the drug list first and the premium second: a $10 premium saving rarely survives one drug moving to a non-preferred tier.
- Budget on the higher Part B estimate, not the lower one. If the official number comes in at $209.50, the household is ahead. If it lands near $218, nobody is scrambling in January.
- If IRMAA is even possible, look at the 2025 return now. A tax preparer can check that in five minutes. If income dropped after 2025 because of retirement, the death of a spouse, or a work stoppage, Social Security can use more recent income, which is what Form SSA-44 is for.
- Use the free help that already exists in Florida. SHINE, the state's Medicare counseling program, gives free and unbiased help at 1-800-963-5337. A trained volunteer will read the notice with you.
- If your parent's Medicare Advantage plan is leaving Florida for 2027, start there instead. Our post on the 2027 Medicare Advantage plan exits explains the non-renewal notice and the deadlines.
Medicare is usually only part of the picture for a Florida family. If you are also weighing what assisted living costs here or working out how Medicaid spend-down actually works, those numbers are bigger than a premium and move more slowly. Veterans and surviving spouses should also check whether VA Aid and Attendance offsets some of the gap, and anyone managing a GLP-1 prescription should see our breakdown of what Medicare will and will not cover.
We will update this post when CMS publishes the official 2027 Part B premium, deductible and IRMAA brackets, expected in November. Until then: the drug cap is up, the average Medicare Advantage premium is down, the Part B number is still a guess, and the notice in your parent's mailbox is worth more than anything you will read online this week.
Sources: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, "Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug Programs Expected to Remain Stable in 2027" (September 28, 2026); CMS, "Medicare Part D 2027 National Average Monthly Bid Amount Information" (July 28, 2026); CMS, "Announcement of Calendar Year 2027 Medicare Advantage Capitation Rates and Part C and Part D Payment Policies" (April 6, 2026), Attachment V; 2026 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds (June 9, 2026), Tables V.E2 and V.E3; CMS, "2026 Medicare Parts A & B Premiums and Deductibles" (November 14, 2025); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Revised news release dates following the 2025 and 2026 lapses in appropriations"; Social Security Administration, Form SSA-44 and ssa.gov/medicare/lower-irmaa; 42 CFR 423.2267(e)(3); Florida Department of Elder Affairs SHINE program; The Senior Citizens League 2027 COLA estimate (September 11, 2026); AARP 2027 COLA projection; projected 2027 IRMAA bracket estimates as published by Kiplinger, based on The Finance Buff, and by other projection services, which are estimates and not agency figures.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the projected Medicare Part B premium for 2027?
The 2026 Medicare Trustees Report, released in June, projects a standard Part B premium of about $209.50 a month for 2027, up $6.60 from the confirmed $202.90 in 2026, and a Part B deductible of $292, up from $283. CMS has not confirmed any 2027 Part B figure yet and is expected to publish the official premium, deductible and IRMAA brackets in November.
Has CMS announced the 2027 Medicare Part B premium yet?
No. As of September 28, 2026, CMS has published the 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D landscape and average premiums, and finalized the 2027 Part D deductible and out-of-pocket cap, but has not published the 2027 Part A or Part B figures. In 2025 the equivalent Part A and Part B release came on November 14.
How much more will Medicare cost in 2027?
On the Part B side, somewhere between the Trustees' projected $6.60 a month and roughly $15 a month if independent forecasters are right about a premium near $218. On the drug side, the standard Part D deductible rises $85 to $700 a year, and the annual out-of-pocket cap rises $300, to $2,400.
Will the 2027 Social Security COLA cover the Medicare increase?
Probably most of it. The Senior Citizens League projects a 3.5 percent COLA, or about $68 a month on the average benefit, and AARP projects 3.6 percent. The Trustees' projected $6.60 Part B increase would take about a tenth of that. Social Security announces the official COLA on October 14, 2026.
Why are the 2027 IRMAA brackets harder to predict?
Because one of the months of inflation data used to index them was never collected. The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish an October 2025 consumer price index because of the federal government shutdown, and the thresholds round to the nearest $1,000, so that single gap can shift a bracket by $1,000. Official 2027 brackets are expected from CMS in the fall.
When can I change my parent's Medicare plan for 2027?
Medicare open enrollment runs from October 15 to December 7, 2026, and any change made in that window takes effect January 1. Plan Annual Notice of Change letters, which show each plan's 2027 premium and drug list, had to be sent for receipt by September 30, 2026.