What CMS announced for 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D

CMS titled its announcement “expected to remain stable in 2027.” That describes the market as a whole. The useful question is what it tells you about your own coverage, and the honest answer is: less than the headline suggests.

The numbers CMS published

Source: CMS press release, September 28, 2026. CMS describes these as projections. Checked against the release on September 28, 2026.

The same release makes four other statements worth knowing, each one CMS’s own:

• More than 99% of people with Medicare have access to at least one Medicare Advantage plan, and 97% have access to ten or more.
• About eight in ten Medicare Advantage members will be able to stay in their current plan in 2027 with the same or a lower premium.
• 88% of people who are not low-income will have access to a basic Part D plan with a premium of $10.30 or less, and 93% will have access to an enhanced Part D plan for less than $6. Basic plans provide the standard benefit. Enhanced plans add something to it, such as a lower deductible.
• The voluntary Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration, which CMS narrowed for 2026, is planned to end in 2027.

What an average can’t tell you

A weighted average blends every kind of plan in the country, and plans with more members count for more. A lower national number is consistent with plans in your county that cost less and with plans that cost more. CMS’s figure cannot say which kind you are looking at.

The premium is also one line of what a plan costs. Deductibles, copays, coinsurance, the yearly out-of-pocket maximum, your drug list, and which doctors and pharmacies are in the network often matter as much as the premium. In most cases you also keep paying the Part B premium to Medicare on top of any plan premium. CMS has not yet announced the 2027 Part B premium, and this announcement does not include it.

And this announcement covers Medicare Advantage and Part D only. It says nothing about Medicare Supplement (Medigap) premiums.

The Part D piece, in plain terms

The demonstration was a temporary federal program meant to limit Part D premium increases. CMS says the Part D market is returning to normal conditions as it winds down, and its evidence is the projected average for stand-alone plans moving by less than $1.

Keep two things in mind. An average that moves by less than a dollar can be built from plans that go up, plans that go down and plans that stay put. And that row is for stand-alone drug plans. If your drug coverage is inside a Medicare Advantage plan, the third row of the table is the closer measure, and it is still a national figure.

Stable nationally is not the same as unchanged for you

CMS’s own sentence is that about eight in ten Medicare Advantage members can stay in their current plan at the same or a lower premium. That is most people. It also leaves roughly two in ten who cannot, either because their plan’s premium rises or because the plan is not offered next year. CMS does not say how that splits. The national plan count is a net figure, too: plans that end and plans that begin both sit inside it.

Closer to home, several changes are already public, and none of them shows up in a national average. Each has its own write-up:

• Providence Medicare Advantage Is Ending for 2027
• UnitedHealthcare and Providence: What Changes January 1, 2027
• Regence Medicare Advantage and OHSU: What Changes January 1, 2027
• UnitedHealthcare and Legacy Health: what to do with that letter

A network change like these does not, by itself, open a mid-year enrollment window. The window most people use is Annual Enrollment.

What to do this week and this month

• Find your Annual Notice of Change. It is due by September 30 and describes your own plan’s 2027 premium, deductible, copays and drug coverage. If your plan is ending, you will get a notice about that instead. Here is how to read it.
• Write down your prescriptions and your doctors. Dosages for the drugs, and a city next to each doctor. That list is what makes any comparison useful, and checking a doctor properly takes more than checking the health system.
• Mark Annual Enrollment: October 15 – December 7, 2026. Coverage you choose starts January 1, 2027. CMS notes that people who want to keep their coverage generally do not need to re-enroll. Read your notice first anyway, because a plan you keep can still change.
• Use Medicare’s own tools. Medicare.gov’s Plan Finder is where CMS sends people to compare. 1-800-MEDICARE answers questions 24 hours a day, and Washington’s SHIBA program also helps with Medicare questions.
• If your income and resources are limited, ask about help with costs. Medicare Savings Programs and Extra Help may lower what you pay for premiums and prescriptions if you qualify.

Questions people ask about the announcement

Keep reading

• Medicare in 2027: what changes for Clark County seniors
• Medicare 2027 vs 2026: what actually changed
• Your Medicare prep checklist before enrollment opens
• Medicare help in Vancouver, WA

Figures checked September 28, 2026 against CMS’s press release of September 28, 2026. They are national CMS projections, not the premium, benefits or cost sharing of any plan. Your Annual Notice of Change and the plan’s Evidence of Coverage control what your own plan does in 2027.