2027 Medicare Advantage Star Ratings: Results, Winners and What Changed

CMS rated 508 Medicare Advantage contracts that include drug coverage for 2027, compared with 516 a year earlier. A contract is the agreement an insurer signs with Medicare, and one contract can hold many separate plans. Every plan under a contract shares its rating.

Source: CMS 2027 Star Ratings fact sheet (October 8, 2026); low-rated contract counts from Becker’s Payer Issues.

The 15 top-rated contracts are a short and unusual list. Several belong to small regional plans, and two are in Puerto Rico. Longevity Health Plan, which focuses on people in nursing homes, earned 5 stars on all of its eligible contracts.

Contract list as reported by Becker’s Payer Issues from the CMS 2027 data.

If you live in one of these areas, you can read more about two of the winners in our guides to Clover Health Medicare Advantage and Kaiser Medicare Advantage.

A list of 15 contracts sounds like a lot of choice. We matched those contracts against the CMS 2027 plan and county files to see how many individual plans people can actually pick from. For most people, a 5-star plan is simply not on the menu.

Becker’s Payer Issues compared each large insurer’s simple (unweighted) average across its contracts. Humana was the only major carrier on the list to improve.

Unweighted contract averages reported by Becker’s Payer Issues. Your plan’s own rating may be higher or lower than its carrier’s average.

CMS changed the recipe for 2027. Some measures that plans usually scored well on were dropped, while patient outcome surveys now count for more. Analysts at HealthMine also found that the score needed to earn 4 stars rose on several clinical measures.

Special needs plans felt this the most. HealthMine reports the share of SNP contracts at 4 stars or more fell from 45% to 33%. If you are in a dual or chronic-condition plan, look at its 2027 score again before you renew. Our page on special needs Medicare plans explains who those plans serve.

Star ratings are not just a label. The 2027 scores decide which plans get Medicare quality bonus payments in 2028. Contracts at 4 stars or above qualify, and plans often use that money to fund richer extras.

If a 5-star plan is sold where you live, Medicare lets you move into it outside the normal enrollment windows. With the 2027 ratings, that window runs from December 8, 2026, through November 30, 2027.

Most people will still make their move during the regular windows. See our guide to the 2027 Medicare Advantage enrollment periods for the AEP and the January 1 to March 31, 2027 Open Enrollment Period. Pennsylvania readers can also check our list of 5-star Medicare Advantage plans in Pennsylvania.