Wisconsin Medicare Savings Program Income Limits 2026

2026 Monthly Income Limits by Tier

Wisconsin updated its Medicare Savings Program financial standards effective February 1, 2026, incorporating the latest federal poverty level guidelines. Here are the current limits:

These published limits already incorporate the standard $20 general income disregard. That means the figures above represent the effective cutoff, not the FPL percentage alone.

Why Gross Income Is What the State Uses

For Social Security, Wisconsin uses the gross benefit on the SSA award letter, not the net bank deposit. Other countable income, including pensions, also matters. The net deposit is typically lower because Part B premiums ($202.90 in 2026), voluntary tax withholding, and Medicare Advantage surcharges are subtracted before the check arrives.

Families regularly confuse gross income with the net deposit. Wisconsin starts from gross income and subtracts the $20 disregard to determine countable income before comparing it with the limits above.

How the $20 Income Disregard Works

Wisconsin's Income Maintenance workers deduct $20 from gross unearned income (such as Social Security, pensions, and countable VA benefits) when calculating countable income. Certain VA payments, including Aid and Attendance and Housebound allowances, are excluded. If your parent's unearned income is under $20, whatever's left of that $20 comes off earned income instead.

For people with jobs, there's a further earned income disregard: the first $65 of gross monthly earnings is excluded, and then half of what remains is excluded. These stack with the $20 general disregard.

Worked example: A single senior receives $1,365 gross Social Security and has no earned income. After the $20 disregard, countable income is $1,345. That falls under the QMB limit of $1,350 — eligible, even though the gross figure looked close to the cutoff.

What Counts as Assets

Countable assets include checking and savings accounts, CDs, stocks, mutual funds, and secondary real estate. The following are exempt:

• Primary residence (occupied, no equity cap for MSP purposes)
• One personal vehicle (regardless of value)
• Irrevocable burial trusts or prepaid funeral contracts
• Burial funds up to $1,500 per person (reduced by excluded life insurance face value)
• Term life insurance (no cash surrender value)

Jointly held bank accounts are presumed fully owned by the applicant unless you can document that the funds came entirely from the other account holder.

COLA Protection

When Social Security's annual Cost-of-Living Adjustment takes effect in January, it can push someone's income above a program threshold. Wisconsin protects against this: the COLA increase is disregarded from January 1 through the last day of the month in which updated FPL thresholds are published; the updated standards take effect February 1. That cushion prevents a small bump from immediately ending coverage.

Checking Eligibility

If gross monthly income is anywhere near $1,816 (single) or $2,455 (couple), at least one MSP tier is worth investigating. Our Wisconsin Medicare Savings guide includes an income worksheet that walks through the disregard math, plus the asset classification rules, so you can run the numbers before applying.

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