Five Medicare Advantage plans are disappearing from the District of Columbia’s 2027 lineup, taking the count from 20 to 15, according to the state fact sheets the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services dated September 28. Three states moved the other way by exactly one plan each, a reminder that a plan-count change can be tiny on paper and still reshuffle which plans a given retiree can actually use.
D.C.’s 25 percent contraction against three single-plan gains
In the CMS 2027 landscape fact sheets, the District of Columbia shows 20 Medicare Advantage plans for 2026 and 15 for 2027. That is a quarter of its menu gone in one year.
The same document records Connecticut moving from 47 plans to 48, Delaware from 37 to 38 and Iowa from 63 to 64. Each of the three gains one plan, a change of roughly 2 percent in each case. Set side by side, the four jurisdictions show how uneven the year is: the sharp move is concentrated in one place, while the others barely register in the count.
The fact sheets count plans offered in a jurisdiction. They do not say which insurers dropped or added a plan, and they do not say whether a plan that leaves is replaced by a similar one from the same company. That distinction is the one that matters to an enrollee, and it is only visible in the plan notices that insurers send, and in the plan finder once 2027 plans are loaded.
What a missing plan means for a D.C. enrollee
A person in D.C. whose current plan is among the five that are not returning has to choose coverage for January 1 rather than coast. A person in Connecticut, Delaware or Iowa has the opposite problem: the count barely moved, so nothing forces a look, but the benefits, networks and drug lists behind each plan can change regardless of whether the total goes up or down. A count of 48 in Connecticut says nothing about whether a member’s cardiologist or maintenance drugs sit inside the plan they already have.
That is the question each reader has to settle in the weeks ahead: which option fits next year’s doctors, drugs and monthly cost. Medicare’s Open Enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, and the plan must receive the request to join by December 7 for coverage to begin January 1, according to Medicare.gov.
For members who now have to choose between the plans that remain, The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors, along with a prescription-by-plan comparison.
Compare what is left after D.C.’s plan cuts →
Premiums moved in both directions, and not with the plan counts
Plan counts and prices did not travel together in these four places. The same CMS fact sheets give each jurisdiction’s average monthly Medicare Advantage premium. In the District of Columbia it changed from $26.28 in 2026 to $16.91 in 2027, a drop of $9.37 even as the menu shrank from 20 plans to 15.
Connecticut went the other way. Its average monthly premium rose from $16.89 to $25.31, an increase of $8.42, despite the net gain of a plan. Delaware’s average slipped from $15.69 to $14.33, and Iowa’s from $13.20 to $11.21.
These are averages across each jurisdiction’s plans, as CMS reports them, and an average does not describe any single plan. A member of a $0-premium plan in Connecticut is not affected by a higher average, while a member of a plan that is leaving D.C. may find that the replacement they are moved into, or choose, does not resemble the average at all. The practical consequence is that a lower average premium in D.C. is not a reason to skip the comparison, and a higher one in Connecticut is not a reason to leave a plan that still covers a member’s doctors and drugs.
Reading the plan counts alongside the sibling cuts
The same CMS document carries much larger swings elsewhere, and the four jurisdictions here are the small end of it. What makes D.C. notable is the proportion: five plans out of 20 is the biggest relative contraction among these four, while the three gaining jurisdictions each moved by one plan on a base of between 37 and 63.
The document also does not rank plans by quality, network breadth or drug coverage, so a larger count is not a better market. A jurisdiction that adds a plan has simply added an option to evaluate, and a jurisdiction that loses five has shortened a list that every member there has to read again.
Working out which of the remaining plans covers the same drugs and doctors
The free route starts at Medicare.gov. Its joining a plan page says Open Enrollment, October 15 to December 7, lets a member join, drop or switch to another Medicare Advantage plan with or without drug coverage, with coverage starting January 1. It points to Medicare’s plan comparison tool and advises adding every prescription drug taken regularly to get the most accurate monthly and yearly cost estimate. Enrollment can be done on Medicare.gov, through the plan, or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).
Before comparing, members can gather the plan’s 2027 notice, the full list of current drugs with doses, and the names of the doctors and hospitals they use. Those three items decide most outcomes: whether a drug is on the formulary, whether a provider is in network, and what the monthly premium plus the drug costs add up to over a full year.
One rule changes the stakes after December 7. Medicare.gov says the separate Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, January 1 to March 31, is available only to people already in a Medicare Advantage plan, and it lets them switch to another Medicare Advantage plan or return to Original Medicare. It does not reopen the full menu.
Members who need to line up the remaining 2027 plans can use The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit, which has a prescription-by-plan comparison and a provider call script for checking that a doctor is still in network. It is an optional paid product and sits alongside the free Medicare.gov route.
See the prescription comparison and provider call script →
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.
