Humana will drop 530,000 people from its Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage at the end of 2026, KFF counts, while UnitedHealth Group ends 367,000 and CVS Health 254,000. Those are the three largest insurer blocks in a KFF analysis published Oct. 27 that puts total terminations at 4.3 million people. Medicare’s annual open enrollment closes Dec. 7, the main window for picking a replacement before the new plan year starts Jan. 1.
The insurer counts cover individual Medicare Advantage plans that include prescription drug coverage, known as MA-PDs. KFF counts a termination as a county-level plan offering with at least 11 enrollees in June 2026 that is not available for 2027, which captures plans an insurer pulled out of a county as well as plans it ended outright.
For a member of one of these plans, the practical question is which replacement to pick and by when. The KFF analysts, Jeannie Fuglesten Biniek, Meredith Freed, Nancy Ochieng and Juliette Cubanski, write that members of terminated plans “must proactively enroll in another Medicare Advantage plan if one is available in their area.” Anyone holding a termination letter from Humana, UnitedHealth or CVS needs to compare the plans offered in their own county before Dec. 7 instead of assuming coverage carries over.
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How big are the Humana, UnitedHealth and CVS blocks?
Humana’s 530,000 members equal 19% of the individual MA-PD enrollees whose plans are ending, the largest share of any parent company. UnitedHealth Group’s 367,000 are 13% and CVS Health’s 254,000 are 9%. A fourth insurer, Aware Integrated, accounts for another 9%, or 249,000 members, in Blue Cross branded plans it sold in Minnesota.
Together the four parent organizations make up about half of the affected individual MA-PD enrollees. The remainder is spread across smaller insurers.
The three figures describe different companies, not one pool to be added together, and each counts only MA-PD members. CVS Health’s 254,000 does not include its SilverScript stand-alone drug plan, which sits in a separate KFF tally covered below.
What does the Dec. 7 deadline decide, and what comes after it?
Medicare.gov lists the open enrollment period as Oct. 15 to Dec. 7 and says a plan must receive the request to join by Dec. 7. Changes made in that window take effect Jan. 1 of the next year. For a terminated member, that makes Dec. 7 the date for a replacement to be in place when the old plan ends.
It is not the last chance. Under Medicare’s rules for plans that are not renewed, members get a special enrollment period running from Dec. 8 to the last day of February. Medicare.gov adds that anyone who does not join another Medicare Advantage plan before the old one ends is enrolled in Original Medicare, the government-run program.
The cost of waiting is therefore a gap in the new coverage, not a lost right to switch. A member who lets Dec. 7 pass starts January in Original Medicare, without the plan’s network and extras, and has until the end of February to move into another Medicare Advantage plan.
Who counts as terminated, and who is only moved?
KFF’s 4.3 million total combines 3.1 million MA-PD enrollees and 1.2 million people in stand-alone drug plans. Of the MA-PD group, about 2.8 million are in plans open to general enrollment, roughly 14% of that group, and about 300,000 are in special needs plans, which limit membership to people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid or who have particular health conditions.
Another 1.4 million Medicare Advantage members sit in plans being folded into another plan from the same insurer. KFF does not count them as terminated because they are moved automatically and stay in Medicare Advantage unless they choose Original Medicare. That group is mostly in special needs plans, about 900,000 of the total, with 500,000 in general-enrollment plans.
The drug-plan side is concentrated at CVS Health. KFF counts 950,000 people, 81% of the 1.2 million stand-alone drug plan terminations, in SilverScript Choice, which ends in 13 regions. HealthSpring Extra Rx, from Health Care Service Corporation, accounts for 190,000 more across 16 regions. The share of stand-alone drug plan enrollees affected is about 6%, double the 3% of the previous year.
What is left in the county, and what happens to Medigap rights?
KFF finds the average beneficiary can choose among 28 MA-PD plans and nine stand-alone drug plans for 2027, down from 11 drug plans in 2026. Averages hide local differences, since a terminated plan may have been one of only a few in a rural county. The comparison that matters is the list of plans offered where the member lives, checked against the member’s doctors and prescriptions.
Leaving Medicare Advantage for Original Medicare adds a second decision about Medigap, the private supplemental coverage that pays costs Original Medicare leaves behind. KFF says people whose Medicare Advantage coverage is terminated qualify for a Medigap special enrollment period with guaranteed issue rights, meaning insurers cannot deny a policy or charge more because of a pre-existing condition. Members who are only consolidated into another plan and later switch to Original Medicare do not have that federal guarantee.
The open question for a member of a Humana, UnitedHealth or CVS plan is whether the letter describes a termination or a consolidation, since the two carry different rights. The letter, and then the plan list for the member’s county, settle which path applies before Dec. 7.
Is a Humana, UnitedHealth or CVS plan on the way out?
A termination letter starts a short clock: Dec. 7 for a plan in place on Jan. 1, with Original Medicare as the fallback if nothing is chosen. A member who guesses at a replacement can land in a plan that drops a doctor or a drug, and a Medigap decision made in a hurry is harder to undo.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
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.
