Utah · Medicare · The 2027 plan menu, county by county

Utah Medicare Advantage Plans for 2027: What's Changing

On September 28, 2026, CMS published the list of every Medicare Advantage and Part D plan approved for 2027. Statewide the headline is calm: slightly fewer plans, a slightly lower average premium. County by county it is not. We tabulated the new file against last year's for all 29 Utah counties, and against CMS's own enrollment counts, to show where the menu is shrinking, what is happening to out-of-pocket limits, and how many Utahns are in a plan that is not on next year's list for their county.

Utah Retirement Income Data Desk

Reviewed by Brian Penner, Retirement income & long-term care planner · Published September 29, 2026

Utah's Medicare Advantage menu for 2027 is a little smaller and, on average, a little cheaper in premium than this year's: CMS counts 51 plans against 55, and an average monthly premium of $9.16 against $9.59. The changes that matter are underneath those averages. Out-of-pocket limits are higher on most continuing plans, drug deductibles are higher on nearly all of them, and several insurers have pulled back to the Wasatch Front, so a retiree in Cedar City or Richfield is looking at a different list than a retiree in Sandy. CMS says Medicare Plan Finder will show 2027 plans by October 1, and Open Enrollment does not start until October 15, but the underlying file is public now.

How many Medicare Advantage plans will Utah have in 2027?

CMS's fact sheet for Utah says 51 Medicare Advantage plans are available in 2027, compared to 55 in 2026; a year ago the same fact sheet reported 55 for 2026 against 48 for 2025. So 2027 gives back a little more than half of last year's increase. The state has 490,235 people enrolled in Medicare, and as of June 2026, 269,226 of them, 54.9%, were in a Medicare Advantage or other Medicare health plan, against 51.1% nationally.

The total hides two different kinds of plan. The landscape file, which lists every approved plan by county, shows 33 general-enrollment plans for 2027, down from 38, and 18 Special Needs Plans, up from 17. A Special Needs Plan is open only to people who meet its condition: 11 of Utah's are for people with both Medicare and Medicaid, 5 are for people with specific chronic conditions (up from 3), and 2 are for people living in a nursing facility or needing that level of care. For most retirees the number that counts is the 33.

Sources: CMS, Medicare Open Enrollment in Utah, 2027 (fact sheet, September 28, 2026) — cms.gov (PDF); CMS, CY2027 and CY2026 Landscape files, release 202609 — cms.gov; CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment, June 2026 — data.cms.gov. Plan counts by type are our tabulation of the landscape files. CMS counts a plan with two pricing segments as two plans; one 2026 Utah plan had two segments.

What is changing between 2026 and 2027?

The table puts the two landscape files side by side for general-enrollment plans. Premiums are close to flat. Everything that determines what a bad year costs moved up.

General-enrollment plans are those with Contract Category Type MA or MA-PD; Special Needs Plans are excluded except where noted. Plan premium is the monthly consolidated Part C and Part D premium, or the Part C premium where a plan has no drug coverage; it is charged in addition to the Part B premium. Our tabulation of the CMS CY2026 and CY2027 Landscape files, release 202609 — cms.gov. Federal limits: CMS, CY 2027 MOOP and Cost Sharing Limit Calculations — cms.gov.

31 plan IDs appear in both files (6 from 2026 are gone and 2 are new), which makes a direct before-and-after possible. On premium, 22 of the 31 did not change, 7 went up and 2 went down. On the in-network out-of-pocket limit, 18 went up, 9 did not change and 4 went down, with a median change of $250 across all 31. On the drug deductible, of the 25 continuing plans that include Part D, 22 raised it and 3 lowered it. A plan that kept its $0 premium can still be a more expensive plan in a year when you are hospitalized.

Why are out-of-pocket limits going up?

Partly because the federal ceiling went up. Every Medicare Advantage plan must cap what a member pays in a year for in-network Part A and Part B services, and CMS resets the ceiling each year from projected Original Medicare costs. For 2027 the ceiling is $9,850, up 6.49% from $9,250. CMS also sets two lower tiers, $4,450 and $7,150; a plan that keeps its limit at or under a lower tier is allowed more room in how it sets copayments for individual services.

In Utah's 2027 file, no general-enrollment plan has a limit at or under the lowest tier of $4,450; the lowest on the menu is $4,700. Most sit in the middle tier, and 4 are above $7,150, including one at the ceiling. In 2026 the lowest limit offered in Utah was $3,500, and the plan that carried it is not in the 2027 file. For plans that let you go out of network, the combined in- and out-of-network limit can be higher than the in-network figure shown here, and the limit never includes Part D drug costs, premiums, or extra benefits such as dental.

The drug side moved the same way. The standard Part D deductible rises from $615 to $700, and 13 of Utah's 27 general-enrollment plans with drug coverage use the full amount; the median is $685 and the lowest is $215. No general-enrollment plan in either year's Utah file has a $0 drug deductible. The file does show that all 27 exempt at least one drug tier from the deductible. It does not say which tiers, so check where each of your prescriptions sits on the plan's drug list. Our guide to Part D changes for 2027 walks through the deductible, the $2,400 cap and how to read the drug pages of the notice.

Which Utah counties are gaining or losing plans?

A Medicare Advantage plan is approved county by county, so the statewide count describes a menu nobody actually sees. Of Utah's 29 counties, 16 have fewer general-enrollment plans in the 2027 file than in 2026, 9 have more and 4 are unchanged. The chart shows the ten counties with the most people on Medicare.

General-enrollment Medicare Advantage plans listed for each county; 2027 bars solid, 2026 bars lighter. Special Needs Plans are not included. Our tabulation of the CMS CY2026 and CY2027 Landscape files, release 202609.

Along the Wasatch Front the change is small. Salt Lake and Davis counties go from 31 plans to 28, Weber from 25 to 24, and Utah County stays at 28. One county out in any direction, it is larger: Morgan goes from 24 to 16, Summit from 22 to 16, Tooele from 21 to 15, Box Elder from 18 to 12 and Cache from 19 to 14. In the south, Iron County goes from 20 to 12 and Washington County from 17 to 13.

The counties that gained are rural ones that started with a short list. Beaver, Emery, Garfield, Kane, Millard and San Juan each go from 8 general-enrollment plans to 11. The same two organizations serve those six counties in both years, so the number of plans rose while the number of companies did not. Juab goes from 10 plans to 14 and stays at 3 organizations, though one of the three is different.

All 29 Utah counties, sorted by number of Medicare beneficiaries. “Plans” are general-enrollment Medicare Advantage plans; “organizations” are parent organizations offering at least one. “In Medicare Advantage” is Medicare Advantage and other health plan enrollment as a share of all beneficiaries, June 2026. The last column is September 2026 enrollment in plans, including Special Needs Plans, whose plan ID is not listed for that county in the 2027 file; CMS suppresses county-plan counts of 10 or fewer, so small counties are understated, and Daggett County has no published count. Sources: CMS CY2026 and CY2027 Landscape files — cms.gov; CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment — data.cms.gov; CMS Monthly Enrollment by Contract/Plan/State/County, September 2026 — cms.gov. Our tabulation.

Two counties need a separate note. CMS's fact sheet says 100% of people with Medicare in Utah have access to a Medicare Advantage plan, and 99.79% have access to one with a $0 premium, down from 99.94% a year ago. In the landscape file, Daggett and Wayne counties list only Special Needs Plans for 2027, 3 and 4 of them. Those two counties have 1,023 people on Medicare between them, which is the missing 0.21%. Wayne County had one general-enrollment plan in 2026, with 158 members in September. A Wayne or Daggett County resident who does not qualify for a Special Needs Plan has Original Medicare, with a stand-alone Part D plan and a Medigap policy if they choose, as the available route in 2027.

Which insurers are staying, and where?

6 organizations list general-enrollment plans in Utah for 2027, down from 7. The larger shift is geographic. Two organizations that listed plans in 12 and 15 counties this year list them in 4 and 5 for 2027: Davis, Salt Lake, Utah and Weber counties, plus Washington County for one of them. A third goes from 13 counties to 8. One organization goes the other way, from 6 counties to 11. One has no Medicare Advantage plan in the 2027 Utah file at all.

Every organization with a Medicare Advantage plan in the Utah rows of either landscape file, in order of the number of counties with a general-enrollment plan in 2027; the last two offer Special Needs Plans only. This is a factual listing from a CMS file, not a ranking or a recommendation, and it says nothing about networks, benefits or quality. Star Ratings for 2027 are blank in this release; CMS says they will be on Medicare.gov on or around October 8, 2026. We do not offer every plan available in your area. Our tabulation of the CMS CY2026 and CY2027 Landscape files, release 202609.

The practical effect shows in the county table's “organizations” column. Salt Lake County goes from 7 organizations to 6. Morgan goes from 7 to 3, Box Elder from 5 to 2 and Tooele from 6 to 3. In 5 counties (Carbon, Piute, Sanpete, Sevier, Uintah) every general-enrollment plan for 2027 comes from one parent organization. That matters less for premium than for networks: if the one organization's network does not include the hospital or specialist you use, there is no second Medicare Advantage network to switch to. Our guide to HMO and PPO plans in Utah explains what going out of network costs under each; for 2027 the file lists 23 PPO, 5 HMO-POS and 5 HMO general-enrollment plans.

How many Utahns are in a plan that is not on the 2027 list?

CMS publishes enrollment for every plan in every county each month. Matching the September 2026 file to the two landscape files, 258,380 Utahns were enrolled in a plan on this year's list, and 49,525 of them, 19.2%, were in a plan ID that is not listed for their county in 2027. That is an undercount, since CMS withholds any county-plan figure of 10 or fewer and 43 such cells were affected.

That number is not a count of people losing coverage. 6 general-enrollment plan IDs from 2026 are absent from the 2027 file, with 45,424 members, and two of those six account for 42,986. Both belong to organizations that remain in Utah. When a company retires a plan ID it can, with CMS approval, move the members into another of its plans, and they then receive an Annual Notice of Change describing the new plan rather than a termination letter. CMS records those moves in a crosswalk file that has not yet been published for 2027, so we cannot say how many of the 49,525 will be moved automatically and how many must choose. What the file does show is that the organization leaving Utah's Medicare Advantage market had 1,974 members in its two plans, and that continuing plans dropped counties where they had members: in Sanpete, Sevier, Piute and Wayne counties alone, 2,189 people were in a plan ID no longer listed there.

If you receive a non-renewal notice rather than an Annual Notice of Change, the rules are different and more generous. Medicare.gov gives you from December 8 to the last day of February to switch to another plan, says you will be enrolled in Original Medicare if you do not join another Medicare Advantage plan before yours ends, and a plan leaving your area is one of the situations that gives you a guaranteed right to buy certain Medigap policies without health questions. We covered the deadlines and the Medigap rules in what to do if your Medicare Advantage plan is leaving Utah.

What about stand-alone Part D drug plans?

Utah has 8 stand-alone prescription drug plans for 2027, down from 10, and because drug plans are approved by region, all 8 are available in every county. Monthly premiums run from $5.30 to $238.00; in 2026 the range was $0.00 to $132.60. Of the 7 plans offered in both years, 5 raised their premium and 2 lowered it. 5 of the 8 use the full $700 deductible, and none has a $0 deductible, which one plan did in 2026.

CMS's fact sheet says 100% of Utahns in a stand-alone drug plan “have access to a plan with a lower premium than what they paid in 2026.” Read that carefully: it says a lower-premium plan exists on the menu, not that your plan's premium is going down. Nationally, CMS projects the average stand-alone premium will rise from $35.09 to about $36. A lower premium is also not the same as a lower cost, because each plan has its own list of covered drugs and its own pharmacy network.

For the 13.6% of Utah's stand-alone plan members who get Extra Help, the detail that matters is the benchmark. 2 basic plans have a premium at or under the regional low-income benchmark for 2027, down from 3, and the benchmark itself rises from $37.60 to $45.51. The file also lists what a person with full Extra Help would pay for each plan: $0 in the 2 benchmark plans, and from $5.30 to $192.50 a month in the other 6. One of this year's three benchmark plans is not in the 2027 file. If you get Extra Help, check whether your plan is still a benchmark plan for 2027 and read any notice that Medicare or your plan sends this fall. See Extra Help and the Medicare Savings Programs in Utah.

How does Utah compare with the rest of the country?

Utah's average premium was already under the national figure and fell less. CMS projects the national average Medicare Advantage premium will go from $14.37 to $12.00, a drop of 16.5%; Utah's goes from $9.59 to $9.16, a drop of 4.5%. Nationally the number of plans is nearly flat, 5,553 to about 5,532, a decline of under half a percent, while Utah's count falls from 55 to 51. CMS says 97% of beneficiaries nationally will have ten or more Medicare Advantage plans to choose from. Counting general-enrollment plans only, 22 of Utah's 29 counties clear that bar in 2027.

One caution about the averages. They are weighted by enrollment and restated each year: the 2026 fact sheet, published a year ago, gave Utah's 2026 average as $10.97, and this year's gives it as $9.59. Treat the average as a description of the market. Your own premium is the one printed in your plan's notice.

What should you do before December 7?

1. Find your plan's Annual Notice of Change. Medicare.gov says plans send it in September. If you cannot find it, call the number on your member card. If what arrived is a non-renewal notice, the timeline is different; see the link above.
2. Read three lines first: the monthly premium, the maximum out-of-pocket amount, and the drug deductible. In Utah for 2027, the second and third changed far more often than the first.
3. Check that your doctors and hospital are in the 2027 network. A plan that continues with the same name can still change its network, and in counties where organizations withdrew, the provider list is the first thing to confirm.
4. Check every prescription against the 2027 drug list, including the tier, since the tier decides whether the deductible applies.
5. Compare on Medicare Plan Finder on or after October 1. CMS says 2027 plans will be loaded by then, and 2027 Star Ratings on or around October 8. We explained how to read those in Medicare Advantage Star Ratings in Utah.
6. Decide between October 15 and December 7, 2026. The plan must receive your request by December 7 for coverage to start January 1, 2027. If you are in a Medicare Advantage plan on January 1 and regret it, the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, January 1 to March 31, allows one change.
7. If you are thinking of leaving Medicare Advantage for Original Medicare with a Medigap policy, find out first whether a Medigap insurer will accept you. Outside a guaranteed-issue situation, Utah insurers can ask health questions. Our comparison of Medicare Advantage and Medigap in Utah covers the trade.

Free, unbiased help is available from Utah's State Health Insurance Assistance Program at (877) 424-4640, and from 1-800-MEDICARE at any hour.

A Cedar City example: same plan name, different year

Take an illustrative couple in Cedar City, both 71, both in a $0-premium Medicare Advantage PPO. Iron County has 11,269 people on Medicare and 48.5% of them are in Medicare Advantage. For 2027 the county's general-enrollment list goes from 20 plans to 12 and from 5 organizations to 3; 8 of the 12 have a $0 plan premium, and the lowest in-network out-of-pocket limit on the list is $5,100. In September, 1,503 Iron County residents were in a plan ID that is not listed for the county next year.

Suppose their plan continues and the notice shows the premium still $0, the out-of-pocket limit up by $1,000 and the drug deductible up from $615 to $700. Nothing changes for them in a healthy year. In a year with a hospital stay and a course of outpatient treatment for one of them, the most they could be asked to pay for in-network medical care is $1,000 higher than it was, per person. That is the figure to plan around, because it is the one a retirement budget has to be able to absorb. If their plan is instead one of those no longer listed, the first question is whether the letter describes a move into another plan or an end to coverage, and the second is whether their doctors in Cedar City and any specialists they see in St. George are in the network of whatever comes next.

Why this belongs in a retirement income plan

Because the out-of-pocket limit is a number your savings have to cover, and it just moved. A household with two people in Medicare Advantage plans at Utah's 2027 median is exposed to $13,400 a year in in-network medical costs before drug costs, against $11,600 at the 2026 median. A plan that holds up keeps that amount in cash or near-cash, separate from the money meant to produce income, and revisits it every fall when the notices arrive. It also keeps in view what no Medicare plan pays for: extended help at home or in a facility, which is where the large costs of later life sit. Start with what Medicare does and does not pay for in long-term care.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• CMS — Medicare Open Enrollment in Utah, 2027, fact sheet dated September 28, 2026 (490,235 enrolled in Medicare; 51 Medicare Advantage plans against 55; average premium $9.59 to $9.16; 99.79% with access to a $0-premium plan; 8 stand-alone drug plans; lowest stand-alone premium $5.30; 13.6% with Extra Help; Plan Finder and Star Ratings dates): cms.gov — 2027 state fact sheets (PDF)
• CMS — Medicare Open Enrollment in Utah, 2026, fact sheet dated September 26, 2025 (55 plans against 48; 2026 average premium as first published, $10.97; 99.94% with access to a $0-premium plan; 10 stand-alone drug plans): cms.gov — 2026 state fact sheets (PDF)
• CMS — CY2027 Landscape and CY2026 Landscape files, release 202609 (every approved Medicare Advantage, Special Needs and stand-alone drug plan by county, with premiums, deductibles and in-network out-of-pocket limits; Utah rows tabulated by us): cms.gov — landscape files
• CMS — press release, “Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug Programs Expected to Remain Stable in 2027,” September 28, 2026 (national average Medicare Advantage premium $14.37 to $12.00; 5,553 plans to about 5,532; stand-alone drug plan premium $35.09 to about $36; 97% with ten or more plan choices): cms.gov — press release
• CMS — CY 2027 MOOP and Cost Sharing Limit Calculations (in-network limits of $4,450, $7,150 and $9,850 for 2027; mandatory limit $9,250 for 2026, a 6.49% increase): cms.gov — Medicare Advantage rates and statistics
• CMS — Monthly Enrollment by Contract/Plan/State/County, September 2026 (Utah enrollment by plan and county; counts of 10 or fewer suppressed; 258,380 in listed plans, 49,525 in a plan ID not listed for the county in 2027, as tabulated): cms.gov — monthly enrollment by plan and county
• CMS — Medicare Monthly Enrollment, June 2026 (Utah: 490,235 beneficiaries, 269,226 in Medicare Advantage and other health plans; national 36,106,704 of 70,609,057; 29 county rows): data.cms.gov — monthly enrollment
• Medicare.gov — Open Enrollment (October 15 to December 7; changes effective January 1; the plan must get your request by December 7): medicare.gov — Open Enrollment
• Medicare.gov — Joining a plan (Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, January 1 to March 31): medicare.gov — joining a plan
• Medicare.gov — Special Enrollment Periods (plan not renewed: switch between December 8 and the last day of February; enrolled in Original Medicare if you do not join another plan): medicare.gov — Special Enrollment Periods
• Medicare.gov — Plan Annual Notice of Change (sent by your plan in September; contact the plan if you do not get it): medicare.gov — Annual Notice of Change
• CMS — 2026 Medicare Parts A & B Premiums and Deductibles, November 14, 2025 (Part B premium $202.90; the 2027 amount had not been announced as of September 29, 2026): cms.gov — 2026 premiums and deductibles
• Utah Insurance Department — Medicare consumer page (Utah SHIP (877) 424-4640): insurance.utah.gov

About this article. Written by the Utah Retirement Income Data Desk and reviewed by Brian Penner, Retirement income & long-term care planner. Educational only — not medical, financial, or legal advice, and not a recommendation of any specific plan or insurer. Statewide figures are quoted from the CMS Utah fact sheet and press release of September 28, 2026; enrollment rules are quoted from Medicare.gov as of September 29, 2026. The county plan counts, premium and out-of-pocket comparisons, organization counts and enrollment figures are our own tabulation of the CMS CY2026 and CY2027 Landscape files (release 202609), the CMS Monthly Enrollment by Contract/Plan/State/County file for September 2026 and CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment for June 2026. CMS states that landscape data are subject to change as contracts are finalized, and it suppresses small enrollment counts. A plan ID missing from the 2027 file does not by itself mean its members lose coverage; the file does not show which members will be moved to another plan. The example household is illustrative. Plan benefits, networks, drug lists and costs vary by plan and county; confirm the details of any plan on Medicare.gov, with the plan, or at 1-800-MEDICARE before you act. Utah Retirement Income is a licensed independent insurance agency (NPN 16493717) and is not a government agency; we are not connected with or endorsed by Medicare, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the State of Utah, the Social Security Administration, or any government program, and nothing here should be read as an endorsement by them. We do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information we provide is limited to those plans we do offer in your area; please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-MEDICARE, or your State Health Insurance Assistance Program — in Utah, the Utah SHIP at (877) 424-4640 — to get information on all of your options. A $0-premium plan is not free; you still pay Part B premiums and cost-sharing. If you call or text us, you consent to be contacted at the number you provide about your options; message and data rates may apply, and you can opt out at any time by replying STOP.