Medicare Part B Premium History, 1966–2026

The complete standard premium table

Standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B, 1966–2026, as published by CMS (compiled for 1966–2022 in Congressional Research Service Report R40082, Table A-1, from Medicare Trustees reports and Federal Register notices; 2023–2026 from CMS annual fact sheets). This is the standard rate — higher-income enrollees pay IRMAA surcharges, and in hold-harmless years most enrollees actually paid less than the standard rate shown.

The premium at a glance

Linear bars: the 68-fold range means the first three decades barely register — that invisibility is itself the story of the early program's scale. Decade averages of the standard premium:

Did COLA beat Part B? The year-by-year race

Each January, two numbers land on the same check: the COLA raise (the percentage determined the previous fall, applied to your benefit) and the new Part B premium. To make the race comparable across years, the table below runs it on a fixed, illustrative $1,500 monthly benefit — not the average benefit (a full annual average-benefit series does not exist in published SSA tables; see the anchor analysis below). A constant benefit isolates the premium's movement: the raise shown is simply that year's COLA percentage of $1,500.

The premium as a share of the average check

Where official data does support an average-benefit comparison — the SSA's December snapshot anchors — the premium's bite looks like this:

Average benefits: SSA Annual Statistical Supplement, Table 5.A1 (December snapshots — a different basis from the $2,095 fact-sheet average for 2026; see the average benefit history). In December 2010 most enrollees were held harmless at $96.40, i.e. about 8.2% of the average benefit rather than the 9.4% standard-rate figure.

Hold harmless, in depth: who is NOT protected

The hold harmless provision (§1839(f) of the Social Security Act) caps the premium increase — for a beneficiary whose premium is deducted from their Social Security check — at the dollar amount of that year's COLA. It is powerful but has well-defined holes. It does not protect: new enrollees (people who start Part B in the year of the increase pay the full standard rate); IRMAA enrollees paying income-related surcharges; people whose premium is not deducted from a benefit (they pay CMS directly, or a state Medicaid program pays it under a buy-in); and people who were not receiving a benefit in November–December of the prior year. In 2016 the arithmetic also produced a quirk Congress had to patch: because roughly 70% of enrollees were held harmless at $104.90, the entire cost of the premium increase fell on the other 30%, which is how the standard rate reached $121.80 — a figure set by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 and including a small surcharge (about $3 a month) that was repaid through slightly higher premiums in subsequent years.

Run your own numbers for 2027 with the net (after-Medicare) COLA calculator.

The IRMAA interaction

Everything above is the standard premium. About 8% of enrollees pay more under IRMAA (income-related monthly adjustment amounts), set by their modified adjusted gross income from two years earlier — the 2027 tiers will be based on 2025 tax returns. A COLA by itself rarely moves anyone across a tier boundary, but a COLA arriving the same year as a pension start, a Roth conversion, or a one-off capital gain can coincide with a tier jump — and a single tier step in the Part B surcharge can exceed the entire year's COLA raise on a modest benefit. That is the main way "the premium ate my raise" happens outside the zero-COLA years. Tier amounts for 2027 will be published with the official premium; see the 2027 premium page.