Everything You Need to Know About Medicare Open Enrollment

Not all stand-alone plan enrollees face rate hikes

Your actual 2027 premium for Part D stand-alone coverage, however, could be higher or lower than CMS and Avalere averages depending on your plan provider, where you live and the coverage options you choose.

“Definitely look at your current plan and what’s changing for 2027, and look at other plan options as well,” says Kylie Stengel, a principal at Avalere Health. Among the 83 percent of stand-alone plan enrollees who aren’t in Extra Help, 21 percent are in plans that will have a monthly premium increase of $30 or more next year, Avalere estimates. But 27 percent are in plans facing a premium change of less than $5 in 2027, and 14 percent are in plans that will see a premium decrease of $1 to $5 next year.

So average premiums don’t always tell the whole story, Stengel says.

“We do see some plans that are having more significant premium increases and then others that are remaining stable or even decreasing slightly,” Stengel says.

Medicare Advantage and stand-alone plan enrollees have a $2,400 annual out-of-pocket spending cap for Part D-covered prescriptions in 2027. That’s $300 more than in 2026.

Lost subsidies’ effect on premiums, plan availability

The decision by CMS to end a temporary program that would have provided federal subsidies to stand-alone plans next year “did not result in substantially higher across-the-board” premiums for the plans in 2027, “but still likely affected premium levels,” KFF says.

However, the nonprofit says the canceled subsidies are “possibly related” to the loss next year of all zero-premium Part D stand-alone plans available to people not enrolled in the Extra Help program. Four million such beneficiaries enrolled in these plans this year will face higher stand-alone Part D premiums next year, according to KFF.

The canceled subsidies could also be related to monthly hikes of $50 or more next year for some stand-alone plan enrollees who remain in their current plan, KFF says.

For the 32 million Medicare Advantage enrollees in plans that include prescription drug coverage, the average monthly Part D premium is projected to fall 38 percent, from $11.32 in 2026 to $7 in 2027, after applying MA rebates that can be used to lower or eliminate Part D premiums, CMS says.

While the average Medicare beneficiary can choose from 28 MA plans with drug coverage in 2027, plan availability varies by state and region. In 26 states and Puerto Rico, the average Medicare beneficiary will have at least 20 MA plans with drug coverage to choose from in 2027, KFF says. Beneficiaries in nine states and Washington, D.C, on average, will have fewer than 10 options to choose from.

But there will be no MA plans available in 181 U.S. counties next year, up from 67 in 2026, according to an analysis by Modern Healthcare magazine. That’s forcing at least 3.8 million people — a program record — to find new Medicare coverage next year due to MA plans leaving local markets, the magazine reports. In 2026, as many as 2.9 million MA enrollees were left without coverage due to plans pulling out of their areas, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

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