Higher premiums, less choice ahead for Medicare Advantage shoppers in Minnesota

Hundreds of thousands of seniors across Minnesota are facing higher monthly premiums and fewer options for Medicare Advantage health insurance plans during the 2026 enrollment period that begins this month.

While rates are dropping nationally, the federal government is projecting the average insurance premium for Minnesotans will increase nearly 18% next year in the plans, reflecting turbulence in the state’s market for privatized alternatives to the original Medicare program.

HealthPartners, Humana and UnitedHealthcare will stop selling Medicare Advantage coverage next year in dozens of Minnesota counties, primarily outside the Twin Cities metro area. UCare, the state’s second-largest Medicare Advantage provider, announced in early September it would stop selling the plans statewide.

The changes will force thousands of Minnesota seniors — including at least 158,000 currently enrolled in UCare plans — to shop for new insurance from among reduced options.

“It’s gonna be a tough year all the way around for beneficiaries in Minnesota,” said Kelli Jo Greiner, the Medicare product manager at the Minnesota Board on Aging.

About 653,000 beneficiaries in Minnesota elect to receive government-sponsored Medicare benefits via Advantage plans, which are run by insurance companies.

Usually about 3% of Medicare Advantage enrollees in Minnesota switch plans and carriers, Bloomington-based HealthPartners said in a statement, but “this year it could be 30% or more.”

Wednesday marked the official start of Medicare Advantage marketing, so insurers are just beginning to reveal premium jumps and other changes for 2026.

The Medicare Plan Finder tool shows fewer 2026 options in a number of counties, with exits ranging from Humana in Hennepin County and HealthPartners in St. Louis County to UnitedHealthcare in Olmsted County. HealthPartners won’t have the plans in Lyon County in southwest Minnesota or Wilkin County along the North Dakota border.

“This change will affect less than 5% of HealthPartners Medicare Advantage across 46 counties in greater Minnesota where we had minimal membership,” the insurer said in a statement. “We are now in 22 counties in Minnesota.”

Federal officials say that nationally, the average Medicare Advantage premium is expected to drop from $16.40 to $14 per month, a decline of roughly 14%.

But in Minnesota, the average monthly premium is projected to increase from $61.51 in 2025 to $72.34 next year.

Blue Cross, which runs the state’s largest Medicare Advantage plan, is raising premiums by an average of roughly 10% across 66 counties where it sells the coverage.

In general, Medicare Advantage premiums in Minnesota are considerably higher than the national average because seniors here often choose plans with richer benefits, including easy access to doctors, clinics and hospitals, insurance agents say.

In many other states, a larger share of seniors select cheaper or even $0 premium plans that come with more coverage restrictions.

In recent years, Medicare Advantage premium costs in Minnesota have been decreasing even as benefits have gotten richer, said Chad Levis, an insurance agent who is president of Cal Financial Inc. in Edina.

Federal funding for the plans, however, has not kept pace with medical inflation, Levis said. Insurers are boosting premiums and tightening benefits in response to compressed or vanishing profit margins.

Eden Prairie-based UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, announced in July that diminished profitability was prompting the company to exit a number of markets, affecting about 600,000 people nationwide.

The company is beginning to detail these changes, including premium increases for about half of its Medicare Advantage plans in Minnesota.

UnitedHealthcare says it’s closing five plans here and will stop selling Medicare Advantage coverage in 45 of the 72 Minnesota counties where it currently operates. Reductions are concentrated in southern Minnesota.

Across the country, UnitedHealthcare is absorbing a financial hit from changes in the Medicare Advantage risk adjustment system, which compensates insurers for covering sicker patients. Critics say the system has been riddled with waste, fraud and abuse that has enriched health insurers.

The scrutiny is not grounded in fact, UnitedHealthcare believes, yet the company is adjusting its 2026 offerings in response to “significant financial pressure,” said Bobby Hunter, CEO of its government programs.

In Minnesota, UnitedHealthcare was the third-largest Medicare Advantage plan as of March, with about 94,000 enrollees. UCare, which ranked second at the time, is exiting after suffering huge losses last year and in the first half of 2025.

Kentucky-based Humana offers Medicare Advantage plans in 73 Minnesota counties, but will do so in just 35 counties next year. Average premiums at Humana will be about 13% higher across the state, and the company is suspending two of its four $0-premium plans sold here.

Seniors changing health plans likely will mean more work at Minnesota Aging Pathways, the state’s network of free health insurance counselors. This service, formerly known as the Senior LinkAge Line, will concentrate resources on phone-based assistance, Greiner said, versus in-person events.

Meanwhile, insurance agents say they might not be able to provide as much assistance because several Medicare Advantage plans are suspending some commissions for signing up seniors.

“If they’re eliminating a commission or severely cutting a commission, they’re saying: ‘Yeah, we don’t care so much if we gain enrollment this time around,’” said Jack Hoadley, a health policy researcher at Georgetown University.

More than 500,000 Minnesotans get coverage through original Medicare, the government-run program that can require significant out-of-pocket costs when people use health care. These beneficiaries often buy Medicare Supplements, or “Medigap” insurance, plus standalone “Part D” drug plans to round out their coverage.

The annual election period for Medicare Advantage and Part D plans runs from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7.