1. What is actually happening for 2027
Insurers are pulling out of Medicare Advantage markets they no longer consider profitable, and they are doing it at a scale that is unusual by historical standards. This is not one company or one county — it is an industry-wide retrenchment that has now run two years in a row.
For the 2026 plan year, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated that roughly 2.9 million Medicare Advantage enrollees were forced out of a plan that no longer existed — a forced-disenrollment rate of about 10% of everyone in Medicare Advantage.1 Carriers have since announced further withdrawals for 2027; how many people they displace will not be known until the plan year data is published.
The largest single announcement so far came from Humana. On its July 29, 2026 earnings call, the company told analysts it would exit Medicare Advantage plans covering roughly 600,000 members nationwide for 2027 — about 8% of its 7.2 million Medicare Advantage members.2 Humana indicated the plans being cut are concentrated among those rated 3.5 stars or lower for the 2027 bonus year.2
No county-by-county list exists yet
The 600,000 figure is a national total disclosed to investors. As of the end of August 2026, no carrier has published which specific plans in which specific Florida counties are being discontinued. Anyone who tells you today that they know your particular plan is ending is guessing. The authoritative answer arrives in your mailbox — and appears on Medicare’s own plan finder when the 2027 plan year data goes live in October.
Other carriers are making similar moves on a smaller scale. The practical takeaway is not which company is in the headlines. It is that the plan you have today is not guaranteed to exist in January, and the only document that settles it is the one your plan is legally required to send you.
2. The letter: which one did you get?
By law, Medicare Advantage and Part D plans must deliver their annual notice to members no later than September 30 each year.3 That timing is deliberate: it gives you about two weeks to read it before Annual Enrollment opens on October 15.
Two very different letters go out in that window, and people mix them up constantly.
| What arrived | What it means | What it changes for you |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Notice of Change (ANOC) | Your plan continues in 2027, but something about it is different — premium, copays, deductible, drug formulary, or the provider network. | You keep your coverage automatically. You may still want to switch, but nothing forces you to act. |
| Plan non-renewal / termination notice | Your plan will not be offered in your area in 2027. The contract is ending. | Your coverage ends December 31. You get extra enrollment rights — and you have to use them. |
If you are not sure which one you are holding, look for the word “discontinued,” “non-renewal,” “terminating,” or a sentence saying the plan “will not be offered” in 2027. An ANOC compares this year’s costs to next year’s in side-by-side columns; a non-renewal notice tells you the plan is ending and points you toward your options.
Do not throw it away
The termination notice carries a date that matters later — it is one of the three dates that can start your Medigap guaranteed-issue clock. Put it somewhere you can find it in December. If you have already recycled it, call your plan’s member services and ask them to resend it.
3. What happens if you do nothing
This is the part that surprises people, so it is worth stating plainly. If your Medicare Advantage plan is discontinued and you take no action at all, you are not left without health coverage. You are automatically returned to Original Medicare — Part A and Part B — effective January 1.4
That sounds like a soft landing, and in one sense it is. But it leaves two holes that can cost real money:
- No prescription drug coverage. Your Medicare Advantage plan almost certainly included Part D. Original Medicare does not. If you do not actively join a stand-alone Part D plan, you have no drug coverage in January — and you start accruing a late-enrollment penalty.
- No cap on what you pay. Original Medicare on its own has no annual out-of-pocket maximum. Medicare Advantage plans are required to have one. Without either a Medigap policy or a new Advantage plan, a bad year is genuinely open-ended.
The drug-coverage gap is the one that quietly compounds. The Part D late enrollment penalty is 1% of the national base beneficiary premium for every month you went without creditable drug coverage, and once it is attached it stays on your premium for as long as you have Part D. CMS set the 2027 national base beneficiary premium at $41.33.5
| Months without drug coverage | Added to your Part D premium | Cost over a year |
|---|---|---|
| 3 months | $1.20 | $14.40 |
| 6 months | $2.50 | $30.00 |
| 12 months | $5.00 | $60.00 |
| 24 months | $9.90 | $118.80 |
| 36 months | $14.90 | $178.80 |
Penalty calculated at 1% of the 2027 national base beneficiary premium ($41.33) per uncovered month, rounded to the nearest 10 cents, per the CMS methodology.5 The base premium is reset annually, so the penalty amount moves with it.
These are not enormous numbers month to month. They are annoying, permanent, and entirely avoidable — which is exactly the kind of thing worth ten minutes of attention in November.
4. Your four enrollment windows
When a plan is discontinued, you do not get one chance to fix it. You get several, and they overlap. Here is the full calendar, with the rules straight from Medicare.
| Window | Dates | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Enrollment (AEP) | Oct 15 – Dec 7, 2026 | Join, switch or drop a Medicare Advantage plan or a Part D plan. Everyone gets this one. Changes take effect January 1. |
| Non-renewal Special Enrollment Period | Dec 8, 2026 – Feb 28, 2027 | Only if your plan’s contract was not renewed. Switch to another Medicare Advantage plan or a Part D plan. If you do not join an Advantage plan before yours ends, you go to Original Medicare.4 |
| Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment | Jan 1 – Mar 31, 2027 | If you are already in an Advantage plan on January 1, you get one switch — to a different Advantage plan, or back to Original Medicare with a Part D plan. |
| Five-star Special Enrollment Period | Dec 8, 2026 – Nov 30, 2027 | If a plan with an overall 5-star rating is available where you live, you may switch into it once during that span.4 |
The one people miss
The non-renewal Special Enrollment Period runs from December 8 through the last day of February — it does not stop on December 7 with everyone else’s Annual Enrollment.4 If you are still deciding in mid-December, you have not missed anything. What you may have missed by then is the Medigap window, which is a different clock entirely. That is the next section, and it is the one to read twice.
5. The Medigap door that closes after 63 days
Normally, buying a Medicare Supplement (Medigap) policy after your initial six-month Medigap open enrollment period means answering health questions. The insurance company is allowed to look at your medical history, charge you more, or decline you outright.6 In Florida, where people often stay in Medicare Advantage for years before reconsidering, that underwriting is a real barrier.
When your Medicare Advantage plan leaves, that barrier drops — temporarily. Medicare calls it a guaranteed issue right. During it, an insurance company must sell you the policy, must cover your pre-existing conditions, and cannot charge you more because of your health history.6
| The right | What Medicare says |
|---|---|
| When it applies | Your Medicare Advantage plan is leaving Medicare, stops giving care in your area, its network has changed significantly, or you move out of its service area.6 |
| The catch | You only have this right if you switch to Original Medicare — not if you join another Medicare Advantage plan.6 |
| What you can buy | Medigap Plan A, B, C*, D*, F* or G* sold by an insurance company in your state. *Plans C and F are closed to anyone who became eligible for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020; if that is you, your equivalents are Plan D and Plan G.6 |
| When to apply | As early as 60 days before your Advantage coverage ends, or by the date in your plan’s termination notice, and no later than 63 days after it ends.6 |
| When it starts | A Medigap policy cannot begin until your Medicare Advantage coverage has ended.6 |
Choosing another Medicare Advantage plan is a perfectly reasonable decision. Just make it knowing that it is also the decision to give up a Medigap right you will not automatically get back.
That trade-off is the single most consequential thing in this article. If your plan is ending and you enroll in a replacement Advantage plan during Annual Enrollment, you have quietly used up the one moment when Medigap was available to you without underwriting. If you might ever want Original Medicare plus a supplement — for the freedom to see any doctor who accepts Medicare, with no referrals and no network — this is the year to price it out, not next year.
A Florida-specific note
Florida is one of the states that requires insurance companies to offer at least one kind of Medigap policy to people who have Medicare because of a disability and are under 65.6 That is not true everywhere, and it is worth knowing if you are on Medicare before 65 and have been told a supplement is out of reach.
Not sure which door to walk through?
Bring the letter to a free review — in English, French, Creole or Spanish.
6. Why South Florida feels this more than most places
Plan exits are a national story with an unusually local impact here, for one simple reason: South Florida is one of the most Medicare Advantage–saturated markets in the country.
County figures are KFF’s 2024 analysis, the most recent county-level breakdown published; the national share is KFF’s 2026 enrollment update.7
When 4 in 5 Medicare beneficiaries in a county are in an Advantage plan, a single plan withdrawal displaces a lot of people at once — and they all go shopping in the same eight-week window, for the same remaining plans, with the same doctors already at capacity. That is the part that does not show up in a press release.
It also means the practical question here is rarely “is there another plan?” There usually is. The question is whether the replacement plan keeps the specific things you actually rely on: your cardiologist, your building’s preferred network, the pharmacy on your corner, the specific brand-name drug on your list. Those are the details that get lost when someone picks a plan by premium alone.
7. Before you pick a replacement plan
Whether you stay in Medicare Advantage or move to Original Medicare, run this list before you enroll in anything. It takes about twenty minutes and it is the difference between a plan that works in March and one that does not.
- Write down every prescription, with the dose. Formularies differ more than premiums do. A plan that is $20 cheaper a month can cost you hundreds more a year on one drug that sits on a higher tier. Our guide to the Part D out-of-pocket cap explains how those costs now accumulate.
- List your doctors — and check each one individually. “Accepts Medicare” and “is in this plan’s network” are two different statements. Verify with the doctor’s office, not only the plan’s directory, which is often out of date.
- Find the maximum out-of-pocket, not the premium. On an Advantage plan this number is the real measure of your worst year. A $0-premium plan with a high maximum is a different product from a $40 plan with a low one.
- Check whether referrals are required. HMO and PPO structures behave very differently when you need a specialist quickly.
- Confirm the extras you actually use. Dental, vision, hearing and transportation benefits vary widely and change year to year. If a benefit is the reason you are choosing a plan, read what it actually covers, including the annual dollar limit.
- If you are considering Original Medicare, price the Medigap policy first. Premiums for the same lettered plan differ substantially between companies for identical, standardised coverage. Do this before your 63-day window is spent.
If you are newer to all of this, our guide to enrolling at 65 covers the vocabulary, and the Annual Enrollment guide for 2027 walks through the comparison process in more detail.
8. Free help, and what to be careful about
You do not have to do this alone, and you should not have to pay to get help with it.
- SHINE (Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders) is Florida’s State Health Insurance Assistance Program, run through the Department of Elder Affairs. Trained volunteers give free, confidential, one-on-one Medicare counselling and they do not sell anything. Call the Elder Helpline at 1-800-963-5337.8
- 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227, TTY 1-877-486-2048) is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Medicare’s own plan finder at Medicare.gov lets you enter your drugs and compare every plan available at your ZIP code once the 2027 data is published in October.
A word about the phone calls and mailers that follow a plan exit. When a large number of people are displaced at once, marketing volume goes up sharply. Some of it is legitimate. Some of it is not. A few things worth holding onto:
Signs to walk away from
Nobody from Medicare will call you out of the blue to sell you a plan. No legitimate agent needs your Medicare number, bank details or Social Security number before you have chosen anything. Pressure to decide on the same phone call is a reason to hang up, not a reason to hurry — your non-renewal window runs to the end of February. And be sceptical of anyone claiming to show you every plan available: no agent has access to all of them.
We are an independent brokerage, which means we are not employed by any one insurance company. It also means — as the notice at the bottom of this page says — that we do not offer every plan available in your area, and you should compare what we show you against Medicare’s own plan finder or a SHINE counsellor before you decide. That is the honest version, and it is the version we would want if it were our parents reading it.
9. Frequently asked questions
How do I know for certain whether my Medicare Advantage plan is ending in 2027?
Your plan has to tell you in writing by September 30. That notice is the authoritative answer. You can also confirm from mid-October on Medicare’s plan finder at Medicare.gov once 2027 plan data is published, or by calling your plan’s member services number on the back of your card.
My Medicare Advantage plan is ending. Will I be without health insurance on January 1?
No. If you take no action you are automatically enrolled in Original Medicare — Part A and Part B — effective January 1. What you will not have is prescription drug coverage or an annual cap on your out-of-pocket costs, which is why doing nothing is rarely the right choice.
Do I have to decide by December 7 if my plan was not renewed?
Not if your plan was not renewed. Annual Enrollment ends December 7, but a plan non-renewal opens a Special Enrollment Period that runs from December 8 through the last day of February. Your Medigap guaranteed-issue window, however, is a separate clock that ends 63 days after your coverage ends — so waiting until February can cost you that option.
Can I get a Medigap policy without answering health questions if my plan is discontinued?
Yes, if your Medicare Advantage plan is ending and you switch to Original Medicare. That combination gives you a guaranteed issue right to buy Medigap Plan A, B, C, D, F or G from a company in your state, with pre-existing conditions covered and no health-based pricing. Plans C and F are closed to people who became Medicare-eligible on or after January 1, 2020, who can buy Plan D or G instead. You must apply no later than 63 days after your coverage ends.
What if I join another Medicare Advantage plan instead?
That is a valid choice and for many people the right one. But it means you are not switching to Original Medicare, and the Medigap guaranteed issue right does not apply. If you later want a supplement, you would generally have to go through medical underwriting, where an insurer can charge you more or decline you.
Will my doctors still take my new Medicare plan?
Not automatically. Networks are set plan by plan and change every year. Check each doctor and each facility individually with their office before you enroll, rather than relying only on a plan’s printed or online directory.
What will Medicare Part B cost in 2027?
The Medicare Trustees projected the standard Part B premium at about $209.50 a month for 2027, and some independent forecasters have put it higher. These are projections. CMS does not announce the final 2027 Part B premium and deductible until around November 2026, so treat any number you see before then as an estimate.
Does a plan exit affect my Part D drug plan too?
It can. Stand-alone Part D plans are also non-renewed some years, and they send the same kind of notice on the same September 30 schedule. The non-renewal Special Enrollment Period from December 8 through the end of February applies to Part D plans as well.
10. Sources
- Bruce Japsen, “Thousands Of Seniors May Lose Medicare Advantage As Plan Exits Escalate,” Forbes, August 2, 2026 — reporting the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimate of forced disenrollment for the 2026 plan year.
- “Humana to exit more Medicare Advantage plans in 2027,” Healthcare Dive, and “Humana to exit Medicare Advantage plans covering 600,000 members in 2027,” Becker’s Payer Issues — both reporting the company’s July 29, 2026 second-quarter earnings call.
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — Annual Notice of Change and Evidence of Coverage delivery requirements; plans must deliver the ANOC no later than September 30 each year.
- Medicare.gov — Special Enrollment Periods. Non-renewal: “My Medicare Advantage Plan, Medicare drug plan, or Medicare Cost Plan’s contract with Medicare isn’t renewed … Between December 8 and the last day in February of the following year.” Also the five-star Special Enrollment Period, December 8 to November 30.
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — Medicare Part D 2027 National Average Monthly Bid Amount Information; 2027 national base beneficiary premium of $41.33. Penalty methodology: 1% of the base beneficiary premium per uncovered month, rounded to the nearest $0.10.
- Medicare.gov — Medigap: Ready to buy, guaranteed issue rights table; and the list of states requiring Medigap availability to beneficiaries under 65, which includes Florida.
- KFF — Medicare Advantage in 2024: Enrollment Update and Key Trends (county-level penetration, including Florida at 60% and Miami-Dade at 80%) and Medicare Advantage in 2026: Enrollment Update and Key Trends (national share).
- Florida Department of Elder Affairs — SHINE (Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders), Florida’s State Health Insurance Assistance Program; Elder Helpline 1-800-963-5337.
Disclaimer: JCKC Financial Services is a licensed independent insurance brokerage. This article is for general educational purposes only and is not tax, legal, medical, or financial advice, nor a substitute for guidance from a licensed professional about your specific situation. We are not connected with or endorsed by the United States government or the federal Medicare program. Enrollment dates, guaranteed issue rights, premiums and plan availability change — and the carrier announcements described here are national disclosures that had not been broken out by county at the time of writing. Confirm current details at Medicare.gov, by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (TTY 1-877-486-2048), or with Florida’s SHINE program before making any decision about your coverage.