The $20 a month Medicare is about to take back

Today's Tip: The 2027 Social Security Raise Nobody Is Doing the Math On

Everyone is talking about a 3.8% Social Security raise next year. Almost nobody is talking about what's going to eat most of it before it ever hits their checking account.

Let me explain…

My friend Dot Kowalski is 67. Retired nurse, 41 years on the floor at a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania. The woman has run a household budget on a spreadsheet since 1987. She is not someone you sneak a price increase past.

A couple of weeks ago Dot called me, excited. She had just read that the 2027 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment — the COLA — is forecast to come in around 3.8%. That's up from 2.8% this year. The Senior Citizens League is calling it one of the biggest bumps in years.

Dot pulled up her calculator. Her current check is $2,140 a month. A 3.8% raise meant about $81 more a month starting in January. She was already mentally spending it… new tires, a little extra for her granddaughter's birthday, maybe finally fixing the kitchen window that won't close right.

Then she went to Gemini — Google's AI, free, gemini.google.com — and asked it to run the actual math. Not the headline. The math. Her Social Security raise, minus her expected Medicare Part B premium increase, minus the inflation she's already paying on her own grocery list.

Gemini did it in 90 seconds. And what came back stopped her cold.

Medicare Part B premiums have been rising about 9–10% a year. Her Part B is currently $202.90 a month. A 9.7% increase — which is what 2026 actually saw — would add about $20 to her monthly premium. That's a quarter of her raise, gone. Add her real grocery inflation (she shops at the same store every week and knows her numbers), and her actual take-home raise was closer to $30 a month, not $81.

Dot wasn't angry. She was relieved. Because now she knew. She wasn't going to mentally spend an $81 raise that wasn't really $81. She wasn't going to commit to anything until October, when the official COLA gets announced.

That is the whole point of doing the math now. Not to be a pessimist. To be ready.

Here is the prompt Dot used. You can paste it into Gemini, Claude, or Grok and have your own personal answer in under two minutes.

★ Copy-Paste Prompt

Works in Claude, Gemini & Grok

I am 67 and receive Social Security. My current monthly benefit is $[AMOUNT] before any deductions. My Medicare Part B premium is currently $[AMOUNT] a month, deducted directly from my check.

The 2027 Social Security COLA is currently forecast at around 3.8% by the Senior Citizens League, with other estimates ranging from 3% to 4.7%. The official figure will be announced in October 2026.

Please calculate three scenarios for me — a low (3%), middle (3.8%), and high (4.7%) COLA — and for each one, show me:

1) My new monthly Social Security benefit before deductions
2) The dollar increase from this year
3) My estimated new Medicare Part B premium assuming a 9% increase (this is the rough trend in recent years; flag if a different estimate is more current)
4) My net monthly increase after the Part B premium is subtracted
5) The annual net increase

Show me the results in a simple table I can read on my phone. Use plain language, no jargon. At the end, give me one short paragraph explaining what I should NOT do based on these numbers until the official COLA is announced in October.

Why this works: You're giving the AI your actual numbers, the actual forecast range, and exactly the output format you want. You're also asking for three scenarios — not one — so you can see the spread instead of being anchored to a single guess. And the closing instruction ("what I should NOT do") forces a useful, sober answer instead of cheerful generic advice.

When Dot ran this, Gemini built her a clean three-column table. Low scenario: about $30 net per month after Part B. Middle: about $48 net. High: about $74 net. Same raise headline. Wildly different real-life outcomes.

Then she did one more thing that I want you to do too. She asked Gemini a follow-up: "What about my drug plan and supplemental insurance? Those go up too. Should I expect another deduction in January?" And Gemini reminded her about the Part D deductible going to $700 for 2027 — which had already been finalized — and the typical 5–10% increase on Medigap plans. She added those into her forecast.

★ Today's "Aha!" Moment

The Social Security COLA is a headline. Your COLA is a calculation. Until you subtract Medicare, Part D, and Medigap from the raise, you don't know what your raise actually is. The AI's job isn't to guess your raise. Its job is to do the subtraction the news never does.

I know what you're thinking. "I'm not handing my Social Security number or my actual benefit amount to a chatbot." And you shouldn't. Read the prompt again — there is no SSN in it, no account number, no login, no personal identifier. Just the dollar figure on your monthly check, which is on the same level of secrecy as your grocery receipts. Type the number directly into the chat box. Don't upload your benefits letter. Don't paste an email from SSA. The dollar figure alone is enough math for the AI to work with.

And if you're thinking "I don't know my exact benefit off the top of my head" — that's fine too. Log in to your my Social Security account at ssa.gov when you have a quiet hour, write down your gross monthly benefit and your Part B premium on a piece of paper, and use those two numbers. That's all you need.

★ One Thing to Watch

These are forecasts, not the official number. The Social Security Administration won't release the final 2027 COLA until mid-October 2026, when the September inflation data comes in. Use today's math to plan a range — not to commit to anything. Don't sign up for a new monthly subscription, don't co-sign for a grandkid's car loan, don't pre-pay anything based on a number a forecaster might revise twice before fall. Do the math now so you can move fast in October, when the real number lands.

Open Gemini at gemini.google.com. Sign in with the same Google account you use for Gmail — no separate sign-up. Paste the prompt above with your actual numbers in the brackets. Read the table. Save it somewhere. Run it again in October when the official COLA is announced.

Two minutes today. Six months of clarity.

★ ★ ★

Tool Spotlight ★

Gemini

Site: gemini.google.com

Made by: Google

Cost: Free tier available

Gemini is the right tool for today's task because it pulls from Google's live search index. When you ask about the 2027 COLA forecast, the Part B premium trend, or this week's inflation report, it can actually see the most current numbers — not numbers from a year ago. For anything that touches money, taxes, or government program updates, that matters.

The other reason it's worth a try: if you use Gmail or Google Docs, Gemini sits right inside them. You can ask it to take the table it just built for you and save it to a Google Doc with one click. The free plan also includes a tool called Deep Research, which can spend a few minutes pulling together a multi-source report on a topic — useful when you want to understand something like Part B premium changes from more than one angle.

Best for: Quick lookups of current facts, money math with current data, Google account holders, Gmail and Docs integration, Deep Research reports on the free plan

★ ★ ★

★ Quick Wins

Turn any percent into a real dollar figure — Headlines love percentages. Your wallet works in dollars. Next time you read "rates went up 6%," paste this into Gemini or Grok: "I currently pay $[amount] a month for [item]. If that goes up 6%, what is the new monthly figure and the new annual figure?" Three seconds. Real numbers. No more abstract percentages.

Build a one-page "what changes in January" list — Every January a handful of numbers shift at once: Social Security, Medicare, Part D, supplemental insurance, sometimes property taxes. In Gemini, ask: "List every benefit and premium change that typically happens in January for a 67-year-old Medicare recipient. Format as a checklist I can print." Print it. Tape it to the fridge. Cross items off as letters arrive in November and December.

The "compare these three" lookup — Whenever you're shopping for anything where the price varies — supplemental Medicare plans, auto insurance, even a new microwave — type into Grok: "Compare [item A], [item B], and [item C] in a side-by-side table. Include price, key features, and one honest weakness of each." Grok pulls live web data, so the prices are current. Side-by-side beats reading three brochures every time.

Skill Builder: How to Write a Prompt That Doesn't Get a Useless Answer

The single biggest reason people give up on AI tools is that their first try produces a generic, useless answer. They type "tell me about Social Security COLA" and get back five paragraphs of Wikipedia-style fluff. They close the tab and decide AI is overrated. The tool isn't the problem. The prompt is.

A good prompt has four parts. Who you are. What you have. What you want. What format you want it in. Skip any one of those and the AI fills in the blank with a guess — and the guess will almost always be generic.

Compare these two prompts. Bad version: "What's the 2027 COLA?" You'll get a paragraph of news summary. Good version: "I'm 67, my monthly benefit is $2,140, my Part B premium is $202.90, and I want to know what a 3.8% COLA actually means for my net check in January after Part B goes up. Show me a one-line answer in dollars." Same topic. Same AI. Wildly different output.

The format request is the part most people forget. AI will give you a wall of text by default. If you want a table, ask for a table. If you want bullet points, ask for bullet points. If you want it short enough to read on your phone screen, say so. The AI is happy to oblige — it just doesn't know what you want until you tell it.

Here is a fill-in-the-blank template you can save and reuse on any topic, from medical bills to recipe planning to writing a difficult email.

★ The Four-Part Prompt Template

Works in Claude, Gemini & Grok

WHO I AM: I am a [age]-year-old [retired teacher / homeowner / Medicare recipient / etc.] in [state]. [One sentence about your situation that's relevant to the question.]

WHAT I HAVE: [List the specific numbers, documents, or facts you're working with. Be exact. Dollar figures, dates, names of programs.]

WHAT I WANT: [State the question in one clear sentence. If you want three options, ask for three. If you want a recommendation, ask for a recommendation. If you want a warning about risks, ask for it.]

FORMAT: [Table / bullet list / one short paragraph / something I can read on my phone / something I can print on one page.] Use plain English. No jargon. If something is uncertain, say so.

Why this works: Each section forces you to give the AI a piece of information it can't guess. Your age, your numbers, your real question, and your preferred format. When the AI knows all four, the answer stops being a generic article and starts being your actual answer. Save this template somewhere you can find it — in a note on your phone, a sticky on your monitor — and pull it up every time you sit down to ask an AI for help.

One small habit will sharpen this faster than anything else. After the AI gives you its answer, read it once and ask yourself: did this answer my actual question, or did it answer a question I didn't ask? If it drifted, write back one sentence. "That's helpful, but I asked specifically about [the missing piece]. Can you redo it focused only on that?" The AI will course-correct immediately. It's not insulted. It's a tool.

Three months from now you'll be writing prompts on autopilot. And the people around you who are still typing four-word questions and getting four-paragraph mush will be wondering how you keep getting such useful answers.

The $20 a month Medicare is about to take back

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