For 2027, at least 3.8 million Medicare Advantage members must choose new coverage because their plan is going away (Modern Healthcare analysis of CMS data). At least 11 insurers are leaving Medicare Advantage, and 181 counties will have no MA plan at all, up from 67.
These aren’t consumers who went shopping. They’re consumers who were sent shopping, on a deadline, often among plans they’ve never heard of.
The trap: shopping by premium
When people have to choose fast, they reach for the number they can see. For most, that’s the monthly premium. But for 2027, average premiums are falling while deductibles and out-of-pocket limits are rising. A low premium can hide a much higher total cost.
The bigger cost is usually somewhere else: in the drugs a consumer takes, the doctors they see and the care they’re likely to need. In a Milliman study of 81,597 Medicare Advantage members, the plans members chose on their own cost them about half again as much out of pocket as their best-fit plans: $2,006 versus $1,317 a year on average. And 90% would have come out ahead in their best-fit plan.
Why it matters to everyone who serves them
Forced shoppers who land in the wrong plan don’t stay there. They switch in the January-to-March window, call to complain, or leave at the next renewal. Every early exit means a commission taken back, a member a carrier paid to acquire and lost, and a consumer who trusts the system a little less.
Forced shoppers who land in the right plan are a different story. They have fewer surprises at the pharmacy counter, fewer reasons to leave, and more reason to stay with the agent and the carrier who got it right.
Start with their answer
The best thing anyone in the chain can do for a forced shopper is to start with their own answer: their drugs, their doctors, their expected care, priced against every plan available to them. Then help them enroll in the plan that fits.
Plan first, agent second. This year, it matters more than ever.