After UCare nixes Medicare Advantage, more health care uncertainty for Minnesota seniors

Health insurer UCare’s highly unusual decision to terminate insurance plans used by more than 150,000 seniors is injecting uncertainty into Minnesota’s already turbulent Medicare Advantage market.

Medicare Advantage is a form of Medicare offered by private companies but funded by the federal government. The plans are increasingly popular and heavily advertised on TV, but recent changes have made them less attractive for the insurers, who have begun to pull back.

In the last year a major health system dropped out of one Medicare Advantage network. Insurance giant UnitedHealthcare aims to reduce membership in its plans by hundreds of thousands. And now UCare, the state’s second-largest Medicare Advantage provider, is exiting the market and forcing seniors to scramble to find new coverage next year.

Minnesota Department of Human Services Health Care Policy Analyst Kelli Jo Greiner said Friday there are rumblings of additional changes with other Medicare Advantage plans in Minnesota.

“We don’t know anything definite at this time,” Greiner said, “but this could be a real year of change for people in Minnesota, and they just need to keep their ears and eyes open to what’s happening.”

UCare, which has 26% of Minnesota’s Medicare Advantage enrollees, said Thursday it will not offer the privatized version of Medicare in 2026 — a decision not made lightly, UCare CEO Hilary Marden-Resnik said. The move followed UnitedHealthcare’s July revelation that it wants to drop plans covering more than 600,000 people in the U.S.

Problems include higher-than-expected use of health care services among plan members, and federal payment rates that insurers see as unsustainably low as costs across the industry expand rapidly.

“Blue Cross continues to be the Medicare market leader in Minnesota, and we pride ourselves in having consistent and stable Medicare plans available across the state,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Bloomington’s HealthPartners, with more than 43,000 on the plans in Minnesota, will have Medicare options available, a spokesperson said. Medica, which enrolls about 50,000 Minnesotans on the plans, will continue to offer them in 2026, a spokesperson for the Minnetonka-based insurer said in an email, adding that it can handle an influx.

“There are more than 150,000 individuals who will now be looking for affordable, reliable health insurance for 2026,” the Medica spokesperson said. “For those who choose a Medica plan, our job will be to ensure that we are prepared to support their transition and provide them the coverage they need.”

A UnitedHealth spokesman previously told the Minnesota Star Tribune he couldn’t predict the impact of the insurer’s cuts in Minnesota, where about 94,000 people carry Medicare Advantage coverage with the company. Humana, a large insurer based in Kentucky, additionally has said it will cut down on Medicare Advantage options in some markets.

Greiner said, “We don’t know what that’s going to look like in Minnesota. We’re waiting to find out.”

The end of that service, which Greiner described as a “quasi-Medicare Advantage, fee-for-service-type policy,” created a lot of chaos, forcing policyholders to make many decisions quickly, she said.

Due to the termination, current UCare enrollees will have a special enrollment period extending beyond the typical open enrollment period from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, allowing for plan changes as late as Feb. 28, Greiner said.

But UCare customers who don’t make a change before the end of the year will automatically be put back into original Medicare Part A and B, which does not include coverage of prescription drugs, Greiner added. It’s imperative that many people understand they need to make a coverage decision before then, she said.

“Even though they have additional time to make a decision, we don’t want to see people left without coverage in January,” Greiner said.

Enrollees’ options go beyond Medicare Advantage plans with other insurers, Greiner said.

Tracy Keibler, executive director of nonprofit START Senior Solutions, said Medigap plans are often referred to as the “Cadillac plans” because “you pay the premium and then pretty much, you don’t pay anything else.”

Due to the terminated service, UCare Medicare Advantage customers will have rights to purchase Medigap without any health screening or limitations put on the policy, Greiner said.

In addition to the uncertainty surrounding insurers, health care providers may decide not to participate in a plan in the middle of the year, Greiner said. This year, Duluth-based Essentia Health dropped out of Medicare Advantage networks at Humana.

“We want people to make sure their providers that they’re currently seeing participate, but understand there may be changes down the road,” Greiner said.

UCare Medicare Advantage members don’t need to make any decision before Oct. 15, Greiner said. Minnesota Aging Pathways offers “free, objective, unbiased” assistance for people exploring their options, she said.