{"id":25998,"date":"2026-05-21T08:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=25998"},"modified":"2026-05-21T08:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:33:13","slug":"irmaa-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=25998","title":{"rendered":"IRMAA surprises\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) is not a penalty, but rather a pricing structure. \u00a0IRMAA was created under the \u201cMedicare Modernization Act of 2003\u201d and implemented in 2007. \u00a0Its purpose was to ensure higher-income beneficiaries pay a larger share of their Medicare Part B premiums. Most Americans pay the standard premium, which for 2026 is $202.90. This is only 25% of the full cost of Part B; the Government supplements the remaining 75%. In 2011, IRMAA was extended to Medicare Part D, which is prescription drug coverage. Jeff Judge, writing for Think Advisor, explains how IRMAA is a surprise to those who do not understand the structure of this surcharge and how to avoid it. Read Mr. Judge\u2019s article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2026\/05\/20\/how-to-surprise-proof-the-medicare-surcharge\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2026\/05\/20\/how-to-surprise-proof-the-medicare-surcharge\/\">here\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>Notice:<\/strong>\u00a0The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link\u2019s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) is not a penalty, but rather a pricing structure. \u00a0IRMAA was created under the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12764,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,21,6,15],"tags":[80,385,238,143,61,65],"class_list":["post-25998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cms","category-health-care-finance","category-medicare-general","category-part-dprescription-drugs","tag-cms","tag-healthcare-costs","tag-healthcare-finance","tag-irmaa","tag-medicare","tag-medicare-part-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25999,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25998\/revisions\/25999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}