A Medicare premium is a fact of your health care life. For most everyone, Medicare Part A has no premium. If you have Part B, you pay a premium. Even if you have Part C, you still pay the Medicare Part B premium.

It does not matter which Medicare supplement insurance you choose, you will be adding a premium. When you start out, this premium may be manageable. But will it be manageable in the future? Here are the ways your premium can increase.

Your plan provider may not choose to raise your premium individually. They may use the level premium method. So, you premium does not raise as you attain a certain age. The vendor pools your policy with others for the type of policy you have. If they choose to raise the premiums, they do it for all policies in that group at one time.

The advantage to choosing a plan with level premiums is that market forces help to regulate the plan, not your age or condition. Your state insurance regulator also puts pressure to minimize increases.

The next method used for premium increases in the attained age method. For this method, your age is basis for your premium size. Every one who is the same age is charged the same rate for their policy. In this case, the premiums increase with your age.

The premiums may increase yearly. Another option is that the premium increases at certain age thresholds. For example, the premium may change every five years when 65, 70 and 75 years of old.

The advantage of attained age policies is that they are cheaper when you are 65, but increase in cost as you age.

With an issue age policy, the price is dictated by the age when you buy the policy. As long as you keep renewing the policy, your cost will be the same as the person buying it today who was the same age as you when you bought it.

There are also community rated supplemental insurance premiums. In this case, the Medigap insurance rate is determined by your where you live and not your age.