Retirement Health Care Cost Calculator
Your retirement, your coverage, and the costs you expect
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Confirm the assumptions, current rules, fees, and rounding that apply to your situation before making a decision.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter the age you retire and the age you are planning to. The example retires at 62 and plans to 90, which is 28 years. A life expectancy is a midpoint, so planning a few years past it is the cautious choice.
- 02
If you retire before 65, enter the monthly premium you expect to pay for coverage until Medicare starts — a Marketplace, COBRA or retiree plan. The example uses $850 a month for the three years from 62 to 65.
- 03
Enter your Medicare costs from 65: the Medigap or Medicare Advantage premium, the Part D premium, and your income bracket from 0 to 5 if your tax return puts you above the first IRMAA threshold. The $202.90 standard Part B premium is already filled in from CMS.
- 04
Enter the out-of-pocket costs you expect in a year and your dental, vision and hearing costs separately, because Original Medicare covers almost none of the second group. The example uses $1,500 and $800.
- 05
Set the three rates — medical inflation, general inflation and the return on your savings — then read the lump sum needed at retirement and the year-by-year table. Run the page again with medical inflation two points higher and two points lower before trusting any single total.
Formula
For each year from the age you retire to the age you are planning to, the page builds that year's cost and then compounds it. Before Medicare starts, cost in the first year = the pre-Medicare premium x 12 + yearly out-of-pocket costs + yearly dental and vision costs. From Medicare onward, cost in the first year = (the standard Part B premium + any IRMAA surcharge + the Medigap or Medicare Advantage premium + the Part D premium) x 12 + yearly out-of-pocket costs + yearly dental and vision costs. Cost in year t = that base cost x (1 + medical inflation)^t, where t counts years from retirement. Total in future dollars = the sum of every year's cost. Total in today's dollars = the sum of each year's cost divided by (1 + general inflation)^t. Lump sum needed at retirement = the sum of each year's cost divided by (1 + investment return)^t. The lump sum is built year by year rather than from a closed formula, so it stays correct even when the return and medical inflation are the same number. Share of a Social Security check = the first year's monthly cost divided by the monthly benefit.
Example
Someone retires at 62 and plans to 90, 28 years. Until Medicare starts at 65 they pay $850 a month for a Marketplace plan. From 65 they pay the $202.90 standard Part B premium with no income surcharge, a $175 Medigap premium and a $40 drug plan. They expect $1,500 of out-of-pocket costs and $800 of dental and vision a year, assume 5% medical inflation, 2.5% general inflation and a 6% return, and collect $2,000 a month from Social Security. The first year costs $12,500, which is $1,042 a month, or 52.1% of the Social Security payment. The three years before Medicare come to $39,406, 8.9% of the lifetime total packed into a ninth of the years. At 65 the yearly cost falls to $8,468 as Medicare takes over, then climbs with medical inflation to $13,793 at 75 and $22,468 at 85. The final year costs $27,309 for the same coverage the first year bought. Across the 28 years the total is $443,550 in future dollars, or $304,900 in today's money. To fund all of it from savings earning 6% a year, they would need $196,151 on the day they retire — less than the total, because the money left invested keeps earning while it is spent down. For comparison, Fidelity's 2026 estimate for a single 65-year-old is $185,500, excluding long-term care and most dental care.
Definitions
- Medical inflation
- The rate at which health care costs rise each year, typically faster than general prices. It is an assumption on this page, not a published figure, and it compounds over decades.
- IRMAA
- The income-related monthly adjustment amount, a surcharge on Part B and Part D premiums for people whose income two years earlier was above a threshold. In 2026 the first threshold is $109,000 on a single return or $218,000 on a joint one (CMS).
- Medigap
- A private supplement policy that pays the deductibles and coinsurance Original Medicare leaves to you. A Medicare Advantage plan is the alternative route, replacing Original Medicare with a private plan.
- Lump sum needed
- The amount that, invested at the return you assume, would exactly fund every future year's cost. It is the sum of each year's cost discounted back to the day you retire, so it is smaller than the raw total.
- Today's dollars
- A future amount restated at current prices by dividing out general inflation, so a total spread across decades can be compared with money you hold now.
Good to know
Why health care is the retirement cost that compounds fastest
Most retirement planning treats inflation as a single number applied to a whole budget, and for groceries, fuel and housing that is a reasonable simplification. Health care does not behave like the rest of the budget. It has tended to rise faster than general prices, and because retirement now routinely lasts a quarter of a century, a gap of two or three percentage points a year does not stay small. This page's example assumes 5% medical inflation against 2.5% general inflation over 28 years, and the effect is visible immediately. At 5% a cost doubles roughly every 14.2 years, so the first year of retirement costs $12,500 and the final year costs $27,309 for exactly the same coverage — the same premiums, the same deductibles, the same dental appointments. Nothing has been added; the price has simply moved. Across the whole 28 years the total is $443,550 in the dollars actually handed over, but only $304,900 measured in today's money. The distance between those two figures is the part of the problem that a single year's budget cannot show you. The rate itself is an assumption rather than a published fact, and this page is explicit about that. There is no official long-run medical inflation figure to cite, so the honest approach is to calibrate against what has actually happened recently. Between 2025 and 2026 CMS raised the standard Part B premium 9.7%, from $185.00 to $202.90; its annual deductible 10.1%, from $257 to $283; the Part D out-of-pocket cap 5.0%, from $2,000 to $2,100; and the Part A hospital deductible 3.6%, from $1,676 to $1,736. Those are real, published, single-year moves in the exact costs this page projects, and they straddle the 5% assumption rather than confirming it. Because the rate compounds, it moves the answer more than any other field on the page. Running the projection at 3% and at 7% as well as 5% tells you more than any single total, and the spread between those three results is a fair description of how much you actually know.
The years before 65, and why they cost the most
The single most expensive stretch of a retiree's health care is the part that happens before Medicare starts, and it is compressed into a few years. Someone retiring at 62 has to buy coverage on their own account for three years, and this page's example puts that at $850 a month. The arithmetic is unforgiving: those three years cost $39,406, which is 8.9% of a 28-year total incurred in about a ninth of the time. The moment Medicare begins the yearly cost falls from $13,781 at 64 to $8,468 at 65, and the coverage improves rather than worsening. That drop is the clearest financial argument for working to 65, or for arranging the bridge years deliberately rather than discovering their cost afterwards. There are three realistic routes across the gap and each has a catch. Employer retiree coverage is the most comfortable where it exists, but fewer employers offer it each year. COBRA continues the plan you already know, but it is time-limited and you pay the full premium including the share the employer used to cover, which is why it often costs more than people expect. A Marketplace plan is the route most early retirees take, and it carries a feature worth planning around: the premium tax credit that reduces its cost depends on the income you report for the year. For 2026 the enhanced credits that applied through 2025 have expired and the cliff at 400% of the federal poverty line is back, so a household one dollar above that line receives no credit at all rather than a reduced one. For an early retiree this makes the way income is drawn unusually consequential. Taking a year's spending from taxable savings or from Roth accounts produces far less reportable income than the same amount taken from a traditional retirement account, and the difference can be worth thousands in credits across the bridge years. This page prices the premium you expect to pay; deciding which route produces that premium, and what income to report alongside it, is worth its own exercise before the retirement date is fixed.
What Medicare does not pay for
Medicare is often described as though reaching 65 ends the question of health costs, and the arithmetic on this page depends on understanding why it does not. Original Medicare has no annual out-of-pocket maximum of the kind commercial plans carry. Part A charges a deductible of $1,736 per benefit period in 2026, and a hospital stay that runs long adds $434 a day for the 61st through 90th day and $868 a day for lifetime reserve days. A skilled nursing facility stay charges $217 a day for days 21 through 100. Part B charges its own $283 annual deductible and then leaves a percentage of most services to you, with no ceiling on how large that percentage becomes. This is the exposure a Medigap policy or a Medicare Advantage plan exists to close, and it is why the example carries a $175 monthly supplement premium alongside the $202.90 Part B premium. Two categories sit outside the projection entirely, and both are deliberate. Dental, vision and hearing are the first, which is why they appear as their own field at $800 a year. Original Medicare covers almost no routine dentistry, eye examinations for glasses, or hearing aids, and these are exactly the costs that rise as people age. Some Medicare Advantage plans include limited benefits for them, usually with annual maximums well below the cost of significant work. Long-term care is the second and much larger exclusion. Medicare pays for short skilled nursing stays following a qualifying hospital admission; it does not pay for custodial care, meaning help with daily activities like dressing, bathing and eating, which is what most people eventually need and what a nursing home mainly provides. That is not a gap this page fills, and the published retiree estimates exclude it for the same reason. Fidelity's 2026 Retiree Health Care Cost Estimate, published in March 2026, puts what a single 65-year-old may need at $185,500 and states plainly that long-term care is not in the figure. Anyone treating a number like that as the whole answer is leaving out the risk most likely to exhaust an estate.
Turning a lifetime total into a savings target
A lifetime total is a useful shock and a poor plan. The number that can actually be acted on is the lump sum: the amount that, invested at the return you assume, would exactly fund every future year's cost. In the example that is $196,151 on the day of retirement, against a nominal total of $443,550. The gap between the two is not an accounting trick; it is the work done by money that stays invested while it is being spent down. The page builds that figure by discounting each year's cost back to the retirement date one year at a time and adding the results, rather than using a closed formula. That detail matters more than it sounds: the usual shortcut for a growing stream of payments divides by the difference between the return and the growth rate, which produces nonsense when someone assumes a 5% return against 5% medical inflation — a perfectly reasonable pair of assumptions that many people will try. Building it year by year gives a sensible answer at every combination. Treat the result as a scale rather than a target, for three reasons. It is highly sensitive to the return and to medical inflation, the two figures you know least well. It assumes you keep the money invested and earning throughout, which a real portfolio does unevenly. And it stops at the age you entered, while a life expectancy is a midpoint that half of people live past. Comparing against a published benchmark is a useful sanity check so long as the comparison is fair. Fidelity's $185,500 for 2026 covers a single 65-year-old, counts Medicare premiums and cost sharing, and excludes long-term care, most dental care and over-the-counter medicines. This page's $196,151 starts three years earlier at 62, includes the dental and vision costs Fidelity leaves out, and uses your own premiums rather than national averages, so the two landing close together is reassurance that the assumptions are not wild rather than confirmation that either is right. Where the money is held matters too, since health costs in retirement are one of the few expenses that a health savings account can meet with dollars that were never taxed.
Frequently asked questions
How much do I need saved for health care in retirement?
On this page's example — retiring at 62, planning to 90, with a $850 pre-Medicare premium, a $175 Medigap premium, a $40 drug plan, $1,500 of out-of-pocket costs and $800 of dental and vision a year — you would need $196,151 set aside on the day you retire, earning 6% a year. That funds $443,550 of care, because the money left invested keeps working while you spend it down.
What will health care actually cost me over retirement?
In the example, $443,550 in the dollars you will really hand over, which is $304,900 measured in today's money. The difference between those two figures is inflation. At 5% medical inflation a cost doubles roughly every 14.2 years, so the first year costs $12,500 and the last costs $27,309 for exactly the same coverage.
How does this compare with the published estimates?
Fidelity's 2026 Retiree Health Care Cost Estimate, published in March 2026, puts what a single 65-year-old retiring this year may need at $185,500 in after-tax savings. It counts Medicare Part A, B and D premiums and cost sharing and excludes long-term care, most dental care and over-the-counter medicines. This page's $196,151 is not directly comparable: it starts at 62 rather than 65, it includes the dental and vision costs Fidelity leaves out, and it uses your own premiums rather than national averages.
Why are the years before 65 so expensive?
Because you are buying insurance without Medicare. In the example the three years from 62 to 65 cost $39,406 — 8.9% of the whole 28-year total in a ninth of the years. At 65 the yearly cost drops from $13,781 to $8,468 even though the coverage improves. This gap is the main financial argument against retiring early, and how you draw income in those years matters too, because a Marketplace premium tax credit depends on the income you report.
How much of my Social Security will health care take?
In the example, 52.1% of a $2,000 monthly payment in the first year of retirement — $1,042 a month. That share usually grows, because medical costs here rise at 5% a year while Social Security's cost-of-living adjustment tracks general prices, set at 2.5% in the example. When two rates differ, the gap compounds, and Medicare premiums are deducted from the payment before it reaches your bank account.
Does this include long-term care?
No, and that is deliberate. Medicare pays for short skilled nursing stays after a hospital admission, not for the months or years of custodial help many people eventually need, and the published retiree estimates exclude it for the same reason. Long-term care is a separate and much larger risk, priced on its own page. Dental, vision and hearing are included here as their own field because Original Medicare covers almost none of them.
What medical inflation rate should I use?
There is no published long-run rate this page can cite, so 5% is a planning assumption rather than a fact. For scale, from 2025 to 2026 CMS raised the Part B premium 9.7%, its deductible 10.1%, the Part D out-of-pocket cap 5.0% and the Part A deductible 3.6%. Because the rate compounds over decades, it moves the answer more than any other field, which is the argument for running the page at several rates rather than one.