Florida’s Medicare Advantage market is about to get smaller, and the state it serves is large. CMS’s 2027 state fact sheet, dated September 28, 2026, counts 5,334,437 Florida residents enrolled in Medicare and shows the number of Medicare Advantage plans in the state falling from 611 this year to 560 for 2027. Open enrollment for 2027 coverage begins October 15.
Florida’s 2027 plan landscape The fact sheet counts plans but does not rank them for any one person; The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors.
Click here to compare Florida Medicare Advantage plans on cost, drugs and doctors →
What the CMS Florida fact sheet counts
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes a one-page profile for each state in its 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D landscape fact sheets. Florida’s page opens with the enrollment figure: “In Florida, 5,334,437 individuals are enrolled in Medicare.”
For scale, the same document counts 7,243,867 Medicare enrollees in California, 2,487,731 in Illinois, 2,029,629 in Georgia, 1,560,534 in Arizona and 1,142,885 in Alabama. Florida’s 5,334,437 is more than twice the Illinois figure.
That number is total Medicare enrollment in the state, Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage together. It is not a count of Medicare Advantage members, and the fact sheet does not break the 5.3 million into the two groups.
The plan count is the line that changes. In the fact sheet’s words, “560 MA plans are available in 2027, compared to 611 plans in 2026.” That is 51 fewer plans on the Florida menu, a drop of roughly 8 percent. The same page says 100% of people with Medicare in Florida will have access to an MA plan, and 100% will have access to one with a $0 monthly premium.
Fewer plans, but a wide menu remains
Even after the cut, 560 plans is a large field. The fact sheet’s own access lines, 100% access to an MA plan and 100% access to a $0-premium MA plan, describe a market that thins out rather than empties. The 2026 base of 611 plans means the 2027 field keeps about 92 percent of this year’s count.
A net decline of 51 plans is a change in the number of options, not the loss of the market. A county-by-county reading is still needed, because the fact sheet reports statewide totals and a plan sold in one Florida county is not necessarily sold in another.
The national picture is similar in direction and far smaller in scale. CMS’s announcement on the 2027 programs, issued the same day, puts the national Medicare Advantage count at 5,553 plans for 2026 and about 5,532 for 2027, and says 97% of beneficiaries will have 10 or more Medicare Advantage options. Florida’s drop of about 8 percent is much steeper than the national change of well under 1 percent.
The statewide average Medicare Advantage premium moves only a little in the fact sheet, from $1.83 a month in 2026 to $2.13 a month in 2027. An average across hundreds of plans says little about any single plan, since premiums are only one part of what a plan costs a member who needs doctor visits or prescriptions.
Where Part D fits for Florida’s drug coverage
Medicare Advantage is not the only choice that gets re-sorted each fall. The Florida page lists 11 stand-alone Medicare prescription drug plans for 2027, with $5.30 a month as the lowest monthly premium among them. Eleven plans is a small group next to 560 Medicare Advantage plans, so the drug-plan decision is narrower even though the stakes for a specific prescription list are the same. Stand-alone drug plans are the route for people in Original Medicare who want Part D coverage, and the premium shown is a floor, not what a typical enrollee will pay once a drug list and a deductible are applied.
The October 15 to December 7 window
CMS says the annual open enrollment period runs from October 15, 2026, to December 7, 2026, for coverage that starts in 2027. That window is when Florida’s roughly 5.3 million Medicare enrollees can review their coverage for the year ahead, and the Medicare Advantage and Part D choices described above are the ones on offer for it.
The fact sheet is a statewide count, so it cannot say which of Florida’s 611 current plans are not returning or which counties lose options. A specific plan’s 2027 premium, network and drug list appear only in that plan’s own materials, not in CMS’s state summary.
Why a 560-plan Florida market is hard to sort without a county and a drug list
The fact sheet’s numbers are statewide, and a Florida member’s choices are set by county. A state total of 560 plans does not say how many of them are sold where a given member lives, and the count alone says nothing about which doctors and pharmacies a plan’s network includes.
Two further pieces of information sit outside the fact sheet. The $2.13 average premium is an average, and the lowest stand-alone Part D premium of $5.30 is a minimum, so neither one stands in for the total cost of a plan for a person with a particular set of prescriptions. That comparison needs a member’s own medications, doctors and county entered into a plan-by-plan tool.
Comparing plans through Medicare’s own channels, including 1-800-MEDICARE and the Plan Finder on Medicare.gov, is free and can be done directly, without a middleman.
Choosing a Florida Medicare Advantage or Part D plan for 2027
With 560 Medicare Advantage plans on Florida’s 2027 menu and no statewide figure that says which plan is cheapest for a given person, the costly mistake is picking on premium alone while a drug or a doctor goes uncovered.
Built for that job, The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit pairs a prescription-by-plan comparison with a provider call script, so a member can check each medication and ask each doctor’s office before the December 7 deadline.
Click here to get The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit →
AI assistance was used in producing this article, which was reviewed against the official documents it cites.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
