When is Medicare open enrollment for 2027 coverage?

It runs from October 15 to December 7, 2026. Any change you make takes effect on January 1, 2027. Outside that window, most people cannot switch plans until the following fall unless they qualify for a special enrollment period.

What is the Medicare Part B premium for 2027?

It is not final yet. The 2026 Medicare Trustees Report projects a standard premium of $209.50 a month, up from $202.90 in 2026, an increase of $6.60 a month or $79.20 a year. CMS announces the official figure in November, and it will be printed on your Social Security COLA notice.

How much more could prescription drugs cost in 2027?

The Part D out-of-pocket cap rises from $2,100 in 2026 to $2,400 in 2027, so the most you can pay for covered drugs in a year goes up by $300. The maximum standard deductible rises from $615 to $700. Offsetting that, Medicare's negotiated prices extend to 25 drugs in 2027, and CMS projects about $685 million in enrollee savings from the new prices.

Medicare Open Enrollment 2027: The New Part B and Part D Numbers, Worked in Dollars

Open enrollment is one week old, and this year the plan you keep by doing nothing is not quite the plan you had. Three Medicare costs move at once for 2027, and the window to react closes on December 7.

What happened

Medicare's annual open enrollment period opened on October 15, 2026 and runs through December 7, 2026. In that window, anyone on Medicare can switch between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage, change Medicare Advantage plans, or join, switch or drop a Part D prescription drug plan. Whatever you choose takes effect on January 1, 2027. More than 70 million people are enrolled in Medicare, and most of them never change anything: KFF has found that nearly 70% of enrollees stay in the same plan from year to year without comparing alternatives.

This is a year when comparing pays. Several large insurers are cutting Medicare Advantage plans or leaving counties entirely for 2027, which means some enrollees will be moved whether they act or not. A temporary federal program that held down premiums for stand-alone Part D plans expires after 2026, so drug plan premiums are resetting at the same moment. And three sets of official 2027 numbers, one projected and two already final, decide what coverage costs next year. Here they are, worked in dollars.

The three numbers that move

The Part B premium: projected at $209.50 a month. Part B covers doctor visits and outpatient care, and its standard premium is the one cost nearly every Medicare enrollee pays, usually deducted straight from the Social Security check. The 2026 Medicare Trustees Report projects the 2027 standard premium at $209.50 a month, up from $202.90 in 2026. That is an increase of $6.60 a month, or $79.20 a year, per person. Two honest qualifiers: it is a projection, not the final figure, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announces in November; and at about 3.25%, it would be the smallest Part B increase since 2023, a relief after last year's jump of nearly 10%, from $185 to $202.90.

The Part D cap and deductible: already set, both higher. CMS has finalized the 2027 prescription drug figures. The most an enrollee can pay out of pocket for covered Part D drugs rises from $2,100 in 2026 to $2,400 in 2027, an increase of $300. The maximum standard deductible rises from $615 to $700, an increase of $85. Most enrollees never reach the cap, but for anyone with expensive medication, the worst case in 2027 is $300 worse than the worst case in 2026, before plan premiums, which are also resetting as the federal premium stabilization program ends.

Negotiated drug prices: 25 drugs, starting January 1. The one change that pushes costs the other way. Medicare's negotiated prices, which covered 10 drugs in 2026, extend to 25 drugs in 2027. The 15 additions include semaglutide, sold as Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus, along with Trelegy Ellipta, Xtandi, Ibrance and Linzess. CMS projects the new prices will save enrollees about $685 million in out-of-pocket costs in 2027. Whether you see any of that depends entirely on whether your drugs are on the list and whether your plan's formulary still covers them the same way in January, which is a second reason to read your plan's Annual Notice of Change instead of filing it.

What it means in dollars

The math: the 2027 Part B figure is the Trustees Report projection of $209.50 against the final 2026 premium of $202.90, a difference of $6.60 a month. The COLA figures are the SSA's official 3.6% applied to current checks. Three examples, worked in full:

The average retiree. The average retired worker benefit is $2,088 a month. The 3.6% COLA raises it by $75.17, to $2,163.17. If the projected Part B premium holds, $6.60 of that raise is committed before the check arrives, leaving a net increase of about $68.57 a month, or about $823 over the year instead of $902. The raise survives, but roughly 9% of it is spent on the premium increase.

A $1,500 check. The COLA adds $54.00 a month. The same $6.60 premium increase applies, because the standard premium does not scale with your benefit. The net increase is $47.40 a month, or $568.80 a year. The smaller your check, the bigger the share of the raise the premium takes: about 12% here, against 9% on the average check.

A two-person household. Part B is charged per person, not per household. A couple where both partners are on Medicare pays the $6.60 increase twice: $13.20 a month, or $158.40 a year in additional premiums. If both receive average checks, their combined COLA is $150.34 a month and their net after both premium increases is about $137.14 a month. If either partner takes a drug that hits the Part D cap, add up to $300 more in possible drug spending on top of that.

The pattern across all three examples is the same one the COLA itself follows: the percentages look small and the dollars are not. $79.20 a year is a utility bill. $300 at the Part D cap is a car repair. Open enrollment is the one window where some of these figures are still choices rather than facts: a different Part D plan or Medicare Advantage plan can carry a different premium, a different deductible and a different drug list, and the comparison costs an hour, not a fee.

Run your own numbers

Start with the total, not the premium. Our Medicare cost estimator adds up what Medicare actually costs a household in a year: Part B premiums per person, the deductible, and drug spending up to the cap. Run it twice, once at the 2026 figures and once at the 2027 figures above, and the difference is the number to shop against before December 7. If your plan is leaving your county or your drugs moved tiers, that difference is your budget for finding a better plan.

Then put the result next to the income side. The 3.6% COLA is already decided; we worked it in dollars in our post on the Social Security COLA for 2027. What is not decided, for anyone who has not claimed yet, is the claiming age itself, which moves a benefit by far more than any premium change in this post. Our Social Security claiming age calculator shows the monthly benefit at 62, at full retirement age and at 70, with the break-even age where waiting starts to win. Run both tools before the December 7 deadline and the enrollment decision sits inside a full picture of 2027 instead of next to a premium notice.

Key takeaways

The window: open enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, 2026, and changes take effect January 1, 2027. The premium: Part B is projected at $209.50 a month, up $6.60 from $202.90, with the official CMS figure due in November. The drug costs: the Part D out-of-pocket cap rises $300 to $2,400 and the maximum deductible rises $85 to $700, while negotiated prices extend to 25 drugs with about $685 million in projected enrollee savings. The net: after the projected premium increase, the average retiree keeps about $68.57 of the $75.17 COLA raise, and a two-person household pays $158.40 a year in added premiums. The move: you cannot change the national figures, but you can change plans. An hour of comparison before December 7 is the only lever that is still yours.