A bill introduced in the House on July 15 would rewrite the Social Security Act formula that decides which Medicare enrollees pay an income-based surcharge, raising the exemption threshold from roughly $109,000 to $171,000 for an individual filer starting in 2027. Representative Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey and Representative Young Kim of California, both Republicans, are sponsoring the Medicare Premiums Reduction Act of 2026, which their offices say could return up to $241 a month to an individual and $482 to a married couple. The bill has taken no votes, sits in two House committees, and the full dollar figure applies only to the upper half of the income band it would erase.
How Section 1839(i) Would Be Rewritten
Since 2007, Medicare has calculated a surcharge, the income-related monthly adjustment amount known as IRMAA, on top of the standard Part B premium for enrollees whose modified adjusted gross income from two years earlier crosses a set of thresholds written into the Social Security Act. For 2026, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services set the first threshold at $109,000 for an individual filer and $218,000 for a couple filing jointly, above which the agency adds $81.20 to $487.00 a month across five income brackets on top of the standard $202.90 Part B premium, plus a separate Part D surcharge of $14.50 to $91.00. Roughly 8 percent of enrollees in each program currently pay some version of the add-on.
House Resolution 9709 targets the two lowest of those five brackets. Current law sets the underlying base threshold at $85,000, a figure that has climbed to $109,000 through automatic inflation indexing since the formula took effect in 2018. The bill sponsored by Kean and Kim would freeze that indexed number at its 2026 level and substitute a flat $171,000 threshold beginning in 2027, the income point where today’s third bracket starts. A companion provision deletes the 35 percent and 50 percent cost-share brackets from the statute outright, leaving only the 65, 80 and 85 percent brackets that currently begin above $171,000.
The bill text amends Section 1839(i) of the Social Security Act in two places, the base threshold in paragraph (2)(A) and the percentage table in paragraph (3)(C). Both changes are written to apply only for years beginning with 2027, meaning the current five-bracket structure and its $109,000 entry point would remain in force through the 2026 plan year regardless of what happens with the bill this Congress.
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Two Districts, One Shared Complaint
Kean represents New Jersey’s 7th District, a competitive seat anchored in Somerset and Hunterdon counties where home equity and retirement-account withdrawals routinely push retirees over the $109,000 line. Kim represents California’s 40th District in Orange County, where a comparable income can reflect a modest pension plus Social Security rather than genuine affluence. In a joint statement announcing the bill, Kean said healthcare costs are “a tremendous burden” for seniors, while Kim argued that beneficiaries in high-cost regions “should not be penalized with extra Medicare surcharges on top of their premiums simply because of where they live.”
The release also quotes Peter Derosa, a certified financial planner from Green Brook, New Jersey, who said he approached Kean’s office because the surcharge now functions as a hidden tax on retirement withdrawals. Derosa argued that “almost any distribution or rollover from a retirement plan now triggers IRMAA” and that the current tier levels are “far too low,” framing the surcharge less as a progressive fee on wealth and more as a penalty on ordinary retirement-account activity that happens to spike income in a single tax year.
The bill carries no Democratic cosponsors and was referred simultaneously to the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, a dual referral that means both panels would need to act, or House leadership would need to discharge the bill, before it could reach the floor. As of late August, neither committee had scheduled a hearing or markup, and the bill’s own legislative history shows no activity beyond the July 15 introduction and referral.
The Gap Between the Two Eliminated Tiers
The sponsors’ headline figures describe only the upper half of the income range the bill would erase. An individual with income between $109,001 and $137,000 currently owes a combined Part B and Part D surcharge of $95.70 a month under CMS’s 2026 tables, $81.20 for Part B and $14.50 for Part D, and eliminating that bracket would save exactly that amount, not $241. The full $240.40 in combined monthly relief applies only to filers between $137,001 and $171,000, where the current surcharge reaches $202.90 for Part B and $37.50 for Part D.
For a married couple with both spouses enrolled in Medicare and both filing in that upper bracket, the combined Part B and Part D relief would run $480.80 a month, close to the $482 figure in Kean’s release. A couple in the lower of the two eliminated brackets would see roughly $191.40 a month back, a real amount but well short of the number the press release leads with.
Because IRMAA brackets are set by income and not adjusted for regional cost of living, the bill’s benefit is concentrated among retirees whose 2025 income, the year that will determine 2027 premiums, falls in a roughly $62,000 band between $109,000 and $171,000 for an individual filer. Retirees below that range already pay no surcharge, and those above $171,000 would see no change at all under the bill as drafted.
Because Medicare bases a given year’s surcharge on income reported two years earlier, the earliest year the bill could affect is 2027, calculated from 2025 tax returns, even if it moved through both committees and passed the House and Senate before the end of this year. With no hearing scheduled in either committee as of its introduction, the more immediate test is whether the pairing of a New Jersey Republican and a California Republican draws any Democratic cosponsors before the current session ends.
This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
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