First look 2027 medicare D and some of the news isn't good.

Although not an agent I am on some medicare insurance agent forums because the information they post is useful. 

First of all, the subsidies that the government gave medicare D plans is not going to exist in 2027 (law expired). It is about $16/mo per person. This means that likely premiums will go up or the companies will make other adjustments to their formularies, tiers of drugs, copays, premiums, etc.  to bring in more money to make up for that income cut (and remember inflation affects this too).

Information is starting to come out about what is happening with Medicare D (both as a stand alone D and some discussion as part of advantage plans) for 2027. While information can be state specific and sometimes county specific for actual D premiums, etc. the general picture of what is happening next year will likely hold across all D plans.

First of all the maximum out of pocket is going up to $2400. The maximum deductible is going up to $700. This doesn’t mean all plans will charge the maximum deductible or out of pocket. 

THE FORMULARY TIERS ARE CHANGING for many companies. The first look (and no company has approval yet for what they hope to do - that happens just prior to when you can start to sign up in October so things may/will change) is that for SOME plans tier one and at times tier two are no longer zero dollars. More plans are moving to a percent of drug cost copay rather than a fixed amount copay in each tier. (so your copay will be higher for more expensive drugs) Formularies aren’t being listed yet but based on workshops some agents have gone to there are going to be major changes - putting more drugs in higher tiers, for example so the copay percent is higher. 

AGAIN - NOTING IS FINALIZED YET. BUT WHAT THIS MEANS IS THIS YEAR IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU PUT YOUR DRUGS MEDICARE.GOV FOR PLAN D’S TO SEE WHAT WILL BE CHEAPEST FOR YOU. There are, apparently, going to be enough changes with most companies that offer these plans that costs are predicted to go up for everyone. But how they do it will likely be different across plans.  

ALSO - AND THIS IS IMPORTANT TOO - not all agents plan to tell their clients about the Plan D’s that don’t offer them a commission (and the trend has been fewer and fewer plan D’s offer the agents a commission or the commission they offer is lower and commissions is how they earn their money). THIS MEANS IT IS ESSENTIAL that you check on medicare.gov the medicare D’s and put in all your drugs to see what best meets your needs.

If you use an agent they may or may not sign you up for the plans that don’t pay commission which may be the plan that is the best fit for you. Because of the commission issue some agents don’t even plan to tell clients about plans with no commission (not to mention agents don’t usually sell all plans out there because of what they have to go through to offer products from each company; this is true for all medicare products). Some agents are willing to sign up their clients who buy other products from them even if they don’t get paid. Others are not. Buyer beware.