Nothing changed this week. Find your 2024 MAGI.
In This Issue
What changed — nothing that touches your money. Why, in detail.
Today’s habit — find your 2024 MAGI
The Number — the 2026 Part A hospital deductible, $1,736
On the calendar — August CPI lands September 11, 2026
Nothing Changed
Estimates for the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment moved again.
They’re estimates.
The SSA sets the real figure from third-quarter CPI-W. July is published, August lands September 11, 2026, and September lands October 14, 2026.
The September payment dates circulated widely. The 9th, the 16th, the 23rd. Same birth-date schedule as always, and the rule that sets your date hasn’t been touched.
And the $41.33 Part D base beneficiary premium for 2027 keeps resurfacing, because CMS published it on July 28, 2026 and no plan has posted a real premium since.
Nothing changed this week that touches your money. That is the whole report.
The point: Nothing here requires action. The next figure that moves anything is the 2027 COLA, published October 14, 2026.
Today’s Habit
Pull your 2024 tax return and write down one number: your adjusted gross income plus your tax-exempt interest.
That sum is what Medicare calls modified adjusted gross income, and it’s the only figure the SSA uses to set your income surcharge on Part B and Part D. The lookback runs two years, so the return you filed for 2024 set your 2026 premium, and the one you filed for 2025 will set your 2027 premium.
The SSA mails the determination late in the year, and by then the return behind it is two years old.
And nobody warns you as you approach it.
The line for 2026 sits at $109,000 filing single and $218,000 filing jointly, per the CMS figures published November 14, 2025.
A dollar over and your surcharge is $81.20 a month on Part B plus $14.50 a month on Part D. That’s $1,148.40 for the year.
One thousand, one hundred and forty-eight dollars, for crossing by a dollar.
The surcharge works as a cliff. Cross the line by one dollar and you pay the whole tier for twelve months. And it lands per person, so a couple both over the line pays it twice.
How:
- Find your 2024 Form 1040. Line 11 is adjusted gross income.
- Line 2a on the same page is tax-exempt interest. Add the two.
- Compare the total to $109,000 single, $218,000 joint.
- Write that number on the outside of the folder where you keep the return.
- If you stopped working, sold a business, or lost a spouse after 2024, look up Form SSA-44, which asks the SSA to use current income instead.
When it’s done: you have one number written down, and you know which side of $109,000 it falls on. Stop there.
The Number
$1,736
That’s the Medicare Part A inpatient hospital deductible for 2026, per the CMS figures published November 14, 2025. Most people assume Part A costs nothing, because the premium usually does.
The deductible isn’t annual.
It’s per benefit period, and a benefit period restarts only once you’ve been out of a hospital or a skilled nursing facility for 60 straight days. So two admissions far enough apart in one year cost $3,472 rather than $1,736.
Days 61 through 90 add $434 a day. Skilled nursing costs nothing for the first 20 days, then $217 a day through day 100. And there’s no out-of-pocket maximum sitting behind any of it.
That’s the gap Medigap closes.
Check what your own plan charges for an inpatient stay when the notice arrives this month. Original Medicare’s number is $1,736. Yours may not be.
On the Calendar
September 11, 2026: the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes August CPI, the fifth of six inputs to the 2027 COLA.
September 30, 2026: Medicare Advantage and Part D plans must have your Annual Notice of Change in hand by this date. If nothing arrives, call the plan.
October 14, 2026: September CPI, and the 2027 COLA figure with it.