A notice released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Friday stated standard Medicare Part B premiums would rise by 9.7 percent or $17.90 starting in 2026. This jump is almost double the percentage increase seen from 2024 to 2025.
The deductible for all Part B enrollees next year will be $283.
The Trump administration claimed the increase would have been higher had CMS not acted on skin substitutes earlier this year.
Skin substitutes are biologic or synthetic products used for outpatient wound care and the Health and Human Services Department Office of Inspector General found earlier this year it was “particularly vulnerable to questionable billing and fraud schemes.”
“If the Trump Administration had not taken action to address unprecedented spending on skin substitutes, the Part B premium increase would have been about $11 more a month,” CMS said in a statement.
On the private side, the large increase in premiums is being driven primarily by increased spending on health care. According to a recent survey from KFF, employers are singling out drug prices as a factor contributing to higher premiums in recent years.
Significant shares of firms also cited the prevalence of chronic disease, higher utilization of services and hospital prices.
KFF said it expects deductibles and other forms of cost-sharing may climb as companies look to push more costs of medical care onto employees.
And health care costs are top of mind for U.S. voters. Polling conducted by PerryUndem earlier this year found that 69 percent of voters believe that health care is not affordable today; this metric remains consistent across party lines.
Sixty-three percent of participants said they blamed insurance companies the most for medical debt, and 67 percent of voters said they agreed that the U.S. needs to switch to a different system of health insurance.