Two contracts account for roughly two of every three people enrolled in a five-star Medicare Advantage plan for 2027. MCS Advantage and Clover, with 360,519 and 155,135 members, are the largest of the 15 Medicare Advantage contracts that earned the top rating, according to the 2027 Star Ratings fact sheet the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released on October 8.
Added up, the 15 five-star contracts hold 787,962 enrollees as of October 2026, and those two alone make up 515,654 of them. Triple-S Advantage is third with 120,943 members. After that the list drops off quickly, to a UnitedHealth Group contract with 45,252 members and a Leon Health contract with 40,630.
The practical question for anyone on Medicare is whether a five-star contract is sold where they live, and whether that justifies leaving a current plan when open enrollment runs from October 15 to December 7. A five-star rating belongs to a contract, and a contract only enrolls people in the counties it serves, so the list is a starting point for a search by ZIP code and not a menu everyone can order from.
Fifteen contracts out of 508 hold five stars, and which one reaches a given county decides whether a switch is even possible. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors, so a five-star candidate is measured against the current plan on the same prescriptions.
Run a five-star contract through the Decision Kit’s cost calculator before the December 7 close →
The 15 contracts, from largest to smallest
CMS’s table lists each five-star contract with its parent company and enrollment. In order of size:
- MCS Advantage, Inc. (H5577), MHH Healthcare: 360,519
- Clover Insurance Company (H5141), Clover Health Holdings: 155,135
- Triple S Advantage, Inc. (H5774), Guidewell Mutual Holding Corporation: 120,943
- Care Improvement Plus South Central Insurance Co. (H0710), UnitedHealth Group: 45,252
- Leon Health, Inc. (H4286), LMC Family Holdings: 40,630
- Kaiser Foundation HealthPlan of Nevada (H2960): 22,016
- Peak Health Insurance Corporation (H8947), West Virginia UnitedHealth System: 12,789
- Anthem HP, LLC (H6988), Elevance Health: 9,636
- Care Improvement Plus South Central Insurance Co. (H2292), UnitedHealth Group: 8,859
- Sierra Health and Life Insurance Company (H5652), UnitedHealth Group: 6,996
- Longevity HealthPlan of Michigan (H7557): 1,354
- Longevity HealthPlan of New Jersey (H9942): 1,126
- Longevity HealthPlan of Illinois (H9590): 985
- Longevity HealthPlan of North Carolina (H5374): 904
- Longevity Health Plan of Florida (H1644): 818
Five of the 15 belong to Longevity Health Founders, but together they hold just 5,187 members. The three UnitedHealth Group-owned contracts account for 61,107.
Six repeaters and nine newcomers
Only six of the 15 held five stars last year: MCS Advantage, Leon Health, Anthem HP, Sierra Health and Life, and the Longevity plans in North Carolina and Illinois. The other nine are new to the top tier, and that group includes the two biggest names after MCS, Clover and Triple-S Advantage. A five-star rating can move a long way in one cycle, which is why CMS recalculates its cut points every year and why a plan’s stars last October say little about next October’s.
Clover, which announced the result in an October 8 release, said its PPO plans earned five stars and its HMO plan 4.5, and that about 98 percent of its more than 157,000 Medicare Advantage members are in the PPO plans. The company said five stars lets its PPO plans enroll beneficiaries year-round.
How rare five stars is
CMS rated 508 Medicare Advantage drug-plan contracts for 2027, down from 516 for 2026, and the enrollment-weighted average rating slipped to 3.99 from 4.01. Fifteen five-star contracts is about 3 percent of the total. Contracts with four stars or better are far more common: 188 of them, about 37 percent, hold about 71 percent of enrollees.
Nonprofit plans did better than for-profit ones in CMS’s tally, with about 44 percent of nonprofit contracts reaching four stars or more against about 34 percent of for-profit contracts. The ratings also carry financial weight for insurers, because CMS says they affect Medicare Advantage quality bonus payments, in this cycle those paid in 2028.
The five-star switch and its limits
Medicare.gov’s special enrollment period page describes a five-star right. If a Medicare Advantage plan, drug plan or Cost Plan with five stars is available in the person’s area, the page says, it can be joined with a special enrollment period that can be used only once between December 8 and November 30 of the following year. The same page notes that a switch into a five-star drug plan is possible only if one is available locally.
The timing creates an odd overlap. Open enrollment ends December 7, and the five-star period opens the next day, so a person who misses the first can still make one move into a five-star plan through the next November. That right does not make a hurried choice wise: the five-star label rates quality measures across a contract, while the premium, the formulary and the doctor network belong to the specific plan inside it.
Finding a five-star plan in one county
The CMS fact sheet is the free source for which contracts earned five stars. Once the contract number is known, the Medicare Plan Finder, which CMS says it uses to publish the ratings and help consumers compare plans, shows whether that contract sells a plan at the person’s address. If it does not appear in the search results, it is not an option there, whatever its rating.
For a plan that does appear, the comparison that matters is cost against the current plan. That means the monthly premium, the drug deductible, what each regular prescription costs, and whether every doctor and pharmacy used is in the network. Plans from a five-star contract can still carry higher out-of-pocket costs for a particular medication.
The detail to hold onto is the calendar: open enrollment closes December 7, the once-a-year five-star switch begins December 8, and CMS counted 15 contracts, 787,962 members, in the group.
Five stars rate quality, but the bill is still personal
A top rating tells nothing about what the prescriptions on a particular list will cost next year, and only one five-star switch is allowed. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit runs 55 pages and centers on a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors, plus a prescription-by-plan comparison, so that move gets made with the numbers in hand.
Weigh a five-star plan against current drug costs with the Decision Kit’s prescription comparison →
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
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.
