What Happens to 2.9 Million Medicare Advantage Members in January?

CMS posted the 2027 plan crosswalk on October 5, ten days before annual enrollment opened. It maps 943 Medicare Advantage plans to nothing: 2,943,980 members as of this month, 8.13 percent of the book, the fourth straight annual increase and the largest yet. 46 percent of Minnesota's Medicare Advantage enrollment sits in a plan that will not be offered, and $45.35 billion of 2027 benchmark payment is attached to plans that stop existing on December 31.

Once a year, a couple of weeks before annual enrollment opens, CMS publishes a file that says which Medicare Advantage plans live and which ones do not. It is called the plan crosswalk, and it is one of the least discussed and most operationally useful things the agency posts.

The 2027 file went up on October 5. Annual enrollment opened ten days later.

It carries 9,144 rows mapping every 2026 contract and plan number to its 2027 successor. 943 Medicare Advantage plans map to nothing.

The status reads "Terminated/Non-Renewed Contract," and the read me defines it without ambiguity: "All 2026 plans that are no longer offered in 2027."

Joined to this month's enrollment file, those 943 plans hold 2,943,980 members.

"How much of your Medicare Advantage panel is sitting on a plan number that stops existing on December 31?"

The rest of this brief is for subscribers.