What's the best Medicare plan in 2027?

Why no one can honestly name one best plan

Three things decide which plan is best, and all three are about you, not the plan:

• Your doctors and hospital. Most Medicare Advantage plans use a network, and each hospital system here lists its own accepted plans. A plan that is excellent at Albany Med can be the wrong plan if your doctors admit to Saratoga Hospital. The hospital page has the lists side by side.
• Your prescriptions. Each plan has its own drug list, tiers and pharmacy network. The same three prescriptions can cost a few hundred dollars a year in one plan and a few thousand in another, so compare the total yearly drug cost, not the premium.
• How you want to pay. Original Medicare with Medigap costs more each month and little when you use care. Most Advantage plans cost little each month and charge copays when you use care, up to a yearly maximum. Which is "cheaper" depends on how much care you use.

The 2027 Medicare Advantage plans in each county

Medicare Advantage plans are filed county by county. These are the counts for 2027 from the CMS Medicare Advantage and Part D landscape file, contract year 2027, read October 27, 2026. Special Needs Plans are only open to people with Medicaid, certain chronic conditions, or living in a facility; the rest are open to anyone with Parts A and B who lives in the county.

Counts only, by design: Medicare's marketing rules don't allow a plan to be named next to its premium, benefits or star rating without filing, so the county pages list each plan by name and type and the comparison of costs happens with your own doctors and drugs in front of us. What changed from 2026 to 2027, county by county.

How to find the best plan for you, in five steps

1. List your doctors and the hospital they admit to. If keeping any Medicare doctor anywhere matters most, that points to Original Medicare with Medigap. If your doctors are all local, check which Advantage plans include every one of them.
2. List your prescriptions with doses and price them in each plan for the whole year, on Medicare's Plan Finder or with me. Premium plus drug costs is the number to compare.
3. Set a budget for a bad year, not a good one. Add the yearly premiums to the plan's out-of-pocket maximum. That is what a hospital stay or a new diagnosis could cost you.
4. Think about travel. Months in Florida or with family out of state favor Original Medicare with Medigap, or a PPO with out-of-network coverage.
5. Check what you already have. NYSHIP, GE, union or other retiree coverage can conflict with an outside Advantage plan; Medicaid or Extra Help opens other options. Those come before any comparison.

How to choose a Medicare plan in New York goes through each question in depth, and Advantage vs Medigap in New York covers the first fork.

What's already known about 2027

• The Part D yearly out-of-pocket cap rises to $2,400 in 2027, from $2,100, per CMS's rate announcement. Once your covered drug costs reach it, you pay nothing more for covered drugs that year.
• CMS set the 2027 Part D base beneficiary premium at $41.33 a month, the figure used to calculate late-enrollment penalties.
• Plans mailed their Annual Notice of Change by September 30. How to read it, and what to do if your plan is ending.

When to choose

• October 15 to December 7, 2026: the Annual Enrollment Period. Anyone can join, switch or drop a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan for January 1, 2027.
• January 1 to March 31, 2027: anyone in an Advantage plan can switch once to another Advantage plan or back to Original Medicare.
• Any time, in New York: you can buy a Medigap plan without medical questions, and New York prices it the same at every age.
• Turning 65: your seven-month Initial Enrollment Period applies whenever it falls. Turning 65 in New York has the dates.

We do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 10 organizations which offer 81 products in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options. 1-800-MEDICARE (TTY 1-877-486-2048) is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Insurers' legal names and home offices: carriers page.