Key Takeaways
- Medicare’s window for switching a Part D drug plan or a Medicare Advantage plan runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, 2026.
- Danielle Roberts of Boomer Benefits said Part D premiums are jumping for 2027 because a CMS program that held them down expires Dec. 31.
- A Part D premium that rises $150 a month costs $1,800 more in 2027 if the plan is allowed to renew.
- A plan with a cheaper premium can still cost more if it doesn’t cover a drug you take, so the drug list matters as much as the price.
Picture a hypothetical retiree who opens her Part D plan’s Annual Notice of Change and finds her premium going up $150 a month for 2027. If she does nothing, the plan renews, and she pays $1,800 more over the year.
She can still get out of it. But only until Dec. 7.
“You don’t want to be locked into a Part D drug plan that is costing you $150 a month more than last year,” Danielle Roberts of Boomer Benefits, a Medicare insurance broker, said on the Oct. 21 episode of Retirement Answer Man.
This year, a lot of renewal notices look like that one.
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The window shuts Dec. 7
“The annual election period from October 15th to December 7th is for changing your Part D drug plan or your Medicare Advantage plan,” Roberts said. A Medigap policy sits outside it: she said its premiums and co-pays don’t change in this window, and a Medigap plan typically changes at its policy anniversary instead.
So for a drug plan, this is the window that counts.
Roberts tied this year’s jumps to CMS’s Part D premium stabilization program, which she said was set up to “buy those premiums down” and expires Dec. 31. “The stabilization project was always temporary,” she said. The subsidy was bigger in its first year, smaller in its second, and it goes away after this one.
The result shows up in the price tags. Roberts said Part D plans charging more than $200 a month used to be unheard of, and “there’s one in Florida for next year that is $326 a month.” That, she added, is more than someone new to Medicare in the Dallas-Fort Worth area would pay for a Medigap plan.
That’s the premium alone. Roberts warned that a renewing plan can get worse in other ways too: “The out-of-pocket maximum on the plan could go up. That means you have more exposure.”
And the Florida plan she cited works out to $3,912 in premiums for 2027 ($326 times 12). That’s for drug coverage only, before any medical coverage at all.
A cheaper premium can still cost more
Shopping can pay off. Roberts said that in most states some carriers still have plans “in the five to nine dollar range.”
But the premium is only part of the bill. “We really want to make sure that those plans are still going to cover the medications that we need,” she said.
If a cheaper plan’s drug list leaves out a medication, a doctor can file for an exception, and the plan may not approve it. Roberts said she sees retirees weighing an expensive plan that covers their drug against a far cheaper one where they’d have to file for an exception and might not get it. “This is shaky ground for consumers and a little bit scary,” she said.
A plan that saves $150 a month on premiums is no bargain if it leaves its member paying full price for a drug she takes every month.
What to check before Dec. 7
Roberts laid out what the September notice is for: “The reason you get the notice in September is so that you can review that.” The checks that matter:
- The premium: what the current plan charges for 2027 against what it charged this year.
- The drug list: whether every medication taken now is still covered for 2027. If one isn’t, “that’s a very important reason you would want to change,” Roberts said.
- The out-of-pocket maximum: whether it rises, which adds to the worst-case bill.
- The deadline: a switch to another Part D plan or a Medicare Advantage plan has to be made between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7.
My take: this is the year to read the renewal notice line by line. With the stabilization subsidy ending, the default option may now be the expensive one, and a quick side-by-side of premiums and drug lists before Dec. 7 is the difference between keeping that $1,800 and handing it over.
Of course, the market could shift again for 2028. Roberts questioned whether carriers charging the highest premiums will draw enough members to stay in. “I will be interested to see next year if those companies remain,” she said. So whatever plan a retiree picks for 2027 deserves the same review in next year’s enrollment window.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
