Your drug plan's $50 raise limit ends with 2026
In This Issue
What changed: For 2027, your stand-alone drug plan can raise its premium past 2026's $50 monthly limit.
Today's habit: Get an IRS IP PIN.
The Question Everyone's Asking: Missing 2025 inflation data and your 2027 IRMAA brackets.
On the calendar: Medicare Open Enrollment opens October 15, 2026.
What Changed
For 2027, no fixed dollar limit caps how much your stand-alone drug plan can raise its monthly premium. In 2026, plans in a CMS pilot could add no more than $50 a month, up from a $35 limit in 2025, per the CMS 2026 Part D fact sheet. The same pilot trimmed $10 from the starting figure used to price each participating plan, after $15 in 2025.
CMS named it the Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration and ends it on December 31, 2026. Its release of September 28, 2026 confirms 2027 plans run without it. CMS can still reject a bid it judges an outlier, as its 2026 bid review did.
National averages won't show what your plan did. Your plan's Annual Notice of Change prints its 2027 premium beside 2026's, and Open Enrollment lets you switch until December 7, 2026. Every $10 a month of difference costs you $120 across 2027.
The point: Subtract your plan's 2026 premium from its 2027 premium on the notice. If the gap tops $10 a month, compare plans before December 7, 2026; that's $120 or more in 2027.
If your drugs come through a Medicare Advantage plan, the CMS 2027 outlook says about 8 in 10 members can keep their plan at the same or a lower premium. Counting all Advantage plans, the CMS projections put the weighted average premium at $12.00 in 2027, against $14.37 in 2026, and the drug portion at $7, against $11.32. That leaves about 2 in 10 members facing a higher bill.
The point: Find the premium line on your Advantage plan's notice. If the 2027 figure matches or undercuts 2026's, nothing here requires action.
Your IRS2Go phone app became the IRS app on September 25, 2026, per the IRS announcement, and now carries your balance, payments and Identity Protection PIN. Current users get it through a normal update, with no separate download. The app doesn't replace your online account on IRS.gov. The IRS also warns about look-alike apps and ads that claim to open your account, and says it won't ask for sensitive details by unsolicited text, email or pop-up.
The point: Install or update the app only from the Apple App Store or Google Play listing. If you never used IRS2Go, nothing here requires action.
Today's Habit
Opt in to an IRS Identity Protection PIN before the online window closes in mid-November.
Why it matters: An IP PIN is a six-digit number that stops anyone else from filing a federal return with your Social Security number, per the IRS IP PIN page. You don't need to have been a victim to get one. The IRS issues a new number every calendar year and shows it in your online account from mid-January through mid-November.
What it costs to skip: The IRS publishes no dollar figure. It depends on two things: whether you're due a refund, and whether your Social Security number already sits in a stolen data file. You can check the first on last year's return. Nobody can check the second.
How:
- Open the IRS page Get an identity protection PIN and click Get an IP PIN.
- Sign in to your IRS Individual Online Account, or register and verify your identity if you've never used it.
- Open the Profile tab, find the IP PIN section and request your number.
- Write the six digits in your tax folder; any return you file this year, a 2025 extension return included, needs them.
- No online access? With AGI on your last return under $84,000 single or $168,000 joint, the IRS limits in 2026, use Form 15227; otherwise book a Taxpayer Assistance Center visit.
When it's done: A six-digit number sits in your tax folder, and you know to sign in each January for the next one, since the IRS won't mail it. The IRS never asks for your IP PIN by phone, email or text.
The Question Everyone's Asking
Asked this month: "October 2025's inflation figure was never published. Does that change the 2027 IRMAA brackets?"
Nobody official has answered it. The BLS collected no price data from October 1 to November 12, 2025, and the 2027 brackets haven't been published yet.
Your side of the math is already fixed. Social Security sets the surcharge from the most recent tax return the IRS sends it, which for 2027 generally means your 2025 return. It counts modified adjusted gross income: your adjusted gross income plus tax-exempt interest.
It depends on two things. The first is how close your 2025 figure sits to the 2026 thresholds of $109,000 single or $218,000 joint. The second is whether a life-changing event since then, such as stopping work or a spouse's death, lets you file Form SSA-44.
Crossing the first line costs one person $1,148.40 a year at 2026 Social Security rates: $81.20 a month on Part B plus $14.50 on Part D. If you're well clear of the line, nothing here requires action.
On the Calendar
October 15, 2026: Medicare Open Enrollment opens for 2027 coverage.
October 31, 2026: Last day to buy I bonds that keep a 0.90% fixed rate for the bond's 30-year life, per the Treasury's May 1 notice. New rates post November 1, 2026.
General information, not personalised advice. Every figure here comes from the SSA, the IRS, the CMS or the plan document, and carries the year it applies to. Corrections run at the top of the next issue.
— Robert Kessler