This retirement healthcare cost calculator projects your medical bills one year at a time, from the day you stop working to the age you plan to. Before 65 it uses the monthly price you enter for COBRA, a retiree health plan, or marketplace coverage. After that it adds the standard medical charge, any income surcharge (IRMAA), a drug plan, a supplement or Advantage plan, and yearly deductibles and copays.
It’s a cost estimator for health care costs in retirement. Enter your age today, your retirement age, and a planning age. You get a lifetime total in future dollars, a present value (the sum to earmark now), and the cost of your first year of retirement. Two growth rates are yours to set: one for Medicare premiums, one for everything else.
Retirement Healthcare Cost Calculator
Project medical costs year by year from the day you stop working to a planning age: coverage before 65, then Medicare premiums, any IRMAA, a supplement or Advantage plan, and out-of-pocket spending, with separate growth rates and a present value.
Projections use the 2026 CMS Part B premium ($202.90), the 2026 IRMAA rows, the 2026 Part A premiums, and growth defaults drawn from the 2026 Medicare Trustees Report and the CMS National Health Expenditure projections. Coverage amounts marked as examples are placeholders for your own quotes. Real premiums, surcharges, and medical bills will differ. This is an educational tool, not insurance, tax, or financial advice.
Health Care Costs in Retirement, Year by Year From Your Current Age
The defaults describe one person who is 60 today, stops working at 62, and plans to 90. That’s 28 years: three on a $900 monthly policy with $3,000 of yearly bills, then 25 at 65 and older with the $202.90 standard charge, a $34.50 drug plan, a $200 supplement, and $2,000 a year of cost-sharing. The $900, $200, and $2,000 are placeholders, not statistics. Swap in your own quotes.
| Age | Coverage | Yearly cost |
|---|---|---|
| 62 | Own policy | $15,331 |
| 65 | Federal coverage plus supplement | $9,614 |
| 75 | Same | $16,946 |
| 85 | Same | $29,961 |
| 89 | Last year counted | $37,664 |
Added up, that’s $564,602 in future dollars, or $288,964 in today’s dollars at a 4% discount rate. Premiums are 74.9% of it.
Notice the drop at 65: a private policy at 62 costs more per year than federal coverage plus a supplement three years later. That’s the uneven shape of health care in retirement for people who retire early. We checked every figure above against a separate hand calculation, and they match to the dollar.
Pre-Medicare Gap Years: Health Plans From Retirement to Age 65
Medicare eligibility starts at age 65 for most people, so if you plan to retire sooner, you buy coverage until you turn 65. The usual routes are COBRA from your last employer, a retiree plan, or marketplace coverage from HealthCare.gov bought during open enrollment or after job-based coverage ends.
One monthly number covers this stretch; the right figure depends on your coverage choices, income, and state. Enter the price after any subsidy; tax credit math belongs on a separate page.
- Stop at 62 and you fund three early retirement years yourself ($48,520 in the example).
- Stop at 65 and the gap rows disappear from the results.
- Stop at 58 and seven years of a private policy can outweigh a decade of federal coverage.
The cost of health insurance before 65 is the line people most often underestimate. It’s priced for your age, not a pool of workers.
Medicare Part B Premiums, IRMAA, and the 2026 Trustees Report
Most people enrolled in Medicare Part A and Part B pay the standard monthly charge for the medical insurance program: $202.90 in 2026, up from $185.00 in 2025, per CMS. About 99% of beneficiaries owe nothing for hospital coverage because they have 40 quarters of work. With 30 to 39 quarters it costs $311 a month, and $565 with fewer.
The income-related adjustment adds $81.20 to $487.00 a month to the medical charge and $14.50 to $91.00 to the drug plan, based on income from two years earlier. Pick your row; our IRMAA estimator finds it from your tax return. In the example, the second row ($202.90 plus $37.50 a month) lifts the lifetime total to $801,799, and $237,197 of that is surcharges.
For growth, we used the trustees rather than a guess. Their intermediate estimates, from Table V.E2:
| Year | Standard monthly charge | Annual deductible |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 (actual) | $202.90 | $283 |
| 2027 | $209.50 | $292 |
| 2030 | $255.50 | $356 |
| 2035 | $360.60 | $503 |
Going from $202.90 to $360.60 in nine years works out to 6.6% a year, the default for Medicare premiums. The trustees say actual amounts will differ as experience emerges, so stress-testing at 7% or 8% is cheap insurance.
Original Medicare Plus Medigap vs Medicare Advantage
The supplement line is where your plan choice shows up. On its own, the traditional program leaves you the hospital deductible ($1,736 per benefit period in 2026), the medical one, and 20% coinsurance with no yearly cap. Medigap fills most of that for a monthly premium. Advantage plans usually charge less (CMS projected a mean of $14.00 a month) but use networks and copays up to their own limits.
Put either quote in the same field, then set yearly bills to match. With a full supplement, cost-sharing stays low and steady. With an Advantage plan, a small premium plus a bigger bills figure is more honest, especially with medical conditions that need regular care.
Prescription drug coverage has its own line: CMS projected $34.50 a month for the mean stand-alone plan, the default here. The cap on covered drug spending, $2,100 and rising to $2,400 in 2027, limits the prescription costs a bad year can bring.
Out-of-Pocket Medical Expenses and Long-Term Care Costs
KFF’s analysis of the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey found beneficiaries spent $6,330 each on health care in 2022, on average. That includes premiums, deductibles and copays, and things not covered by Medicare, like dental, vision, hearing, and long-term services. It equaled 39% of per-person Social Security benefits, and the share of income was 22% for people 85 and older against 9% for ages 65 to 74.
Two lessons. Out-of-pocket expenses climb with age and health status, so $2,000 of out-of-pocket costs in today’s dollars is a floor for someone healthy, not a ceiling. And since the $6,330 already counts premiums, don’t stack it on the premiums.
Nursing homes and home aides are left out on purpose; the federal program pays for little custodial care. Treat that as a separate risk and earmark savings or insurance for it apart from these health care expenses.
How Fast Do Healthcare Costs Grow? Choosing Two Rates
CMS actuaries project U.S. health spending to grow 5.4% a year from 2025 to 2034, ahead of the economy’s 4.1%, lifting its share of GDP from 18.0% to 20.6%. That 5.4% is the default for every line except the federal premiums.
| Spending category (CMS projection) | Yearly growth |
|---|---|
| All national health spending, through 2034 | 5.4% |
| Program spending by Medicare, through 2034 | 7.7% |
| Private insurance, through 2034 | 5.0% |
| Paid by patients, 2029 to 2034 | 4.4% |
Why two rates? The standard charge is set by law as a share of program costs, and program spending is projected to grow fastest of any payer. Your own bills and supplement quotes track the wider market. One blended number hides that split.
Fidelity’s $185,500 Figure and Your Life Expectancy
Fidelity’s 2026 release, a company estimate, says a 65-year-old retiring that year can expect to spend $185,500 on health care and medical expenses in retirement, up 7.5% from the prior year. It assumes one person with traditional coverage plus a drug plan: premiums are 45%, other medical bills 48%, and drugs 7%.
Fidelity’s figure excludes over-the-counter medications, most dental services, and long-term care. It covers one person, so a couple retiring together should run the numbers for each spouse. It also starts at 65 and skips the gap. Set retirement to 65 here and the defaults give a present value of $245,867, higher mainly because of the $200 supplement and $2,000 of yearly bills we assumed.
Treat $185,500 as a national average anchor, not a plan. A tool to help you estimate health care costs needs your income row, your quotes, and a planning age, which our life expectancy calculator can inform.
How to Budget for Health Premiums Before You Retire
- Get real quotes. Price your pre-65 policy and a supplement for your ZIP code before choosing a date.
- Watch your income two years ahead. A Roth conversion at 63 sets the surcharge you pay at 65.
- Sign up on time. A missed window adds a lifetime charge; see the late enrollment penalty math.
- Fund HSAs while you can. Contributions go in pre-tax, and qualified medical withdrawals are tax-free.
- Count the present value, not the total, as the part of your retirement savings to set aside.
Health savings help; the rest comes out of retirement income. Put the first-year figure in your budget, your retirement plan, and your financial plan, and rerun it each fall when new federal amounts come out.
Your health care cost estimate is only as good as its inputs. Use real quotes in the retirement healthcare cost calculator, keep the trustees’ path unless you have reason to change it, and revisit it yearly.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do I need to save?
Use the present value output: $288,964 for the default case. Your own quotes and ages will move it a lot.
What’s the annual health care bill at 65?
In the example, $9,614, about $801 a month for monthly health insurance and bills combined.
Last reviewed September 2026 against the CMS premium fact sheet, the 2026 Medicare Trustees Report, and the CMS spending projections. New amounts arrive each fall. Projections for education only, not insurance, tax, or financial advice.