Which Humana Medicare Advantage Plans Is Humana Cutting in 2027 and Does It Include Dual SNP?

Humana has not published a definitive 2027 discontinuation list, so no one can name specific plans yet. The current evidence points to continued shrinkage of the insurer's individual MA footprint rather than an announced elimination of Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans. D-SNP remains Humana's fastest-growing segment, which makes wholesale D-SNP cuts unlikely. The actionable signal arrives with the Annual Notice of Change in September 2026, effective January 1, 2027.

The question behind the keyword is reasonable. Humana has spent three consecutive years exiting Medicare Advantage plans, and beneficiaries want to know where the contraction stops. Answering it honestly requires separating what is documented from what is projected, and understanding the machinery that decides which plans survive a contract year.

The enrollment-to-payment mechanism behind plan exits

A Medicare Advantage plan is not a product the insurer can discontinue in isolation. Each plan is an annual contract between a private insurer and CMS, priced by a bid submitted in June of the year before it takes effect. CMS actuaries compare that bid to a benchmark set by fee-for-service spending in each county. If the insurer bids below the benchmark, it keeps the difference as a rebate it must spend on supplemental benefits. If it bids above, members pay the gap as premiums.

The binding constraint on plan survival is Star Ratings. CMS pays quality bonuses of roughly 5 percent to plans rated 4 stars or higher, and those bonuses flow through the benchmark itself, lifting the rebate available to fund extras. Plans below 3 stars lose the bonus and face automatic enrollment restrictions. When a plan's risk-adjusted revenue can no longer cover its bids at a profit, the insurer files a service area reduction or a plan termination with CMS rather than renew the contract.

This is why exits cluster by county and by plan type rather than by brand. Humana's 2025 retreat, confirmed in its October 2024 third-quarter earnings release, removed roughly 560,000 members from individual MA plans in 2025, with the heaviest reductions in counties where Star Ratings had slipped and where rebate dollars were already thin, according to the company's investor disclosures. The same arithmetic applies to 2026 and 2027. Nothing in that arithmetic singles out D-SNPs, because D-SNPs carry a distinct payment structure described below.

Quantified context: Humana's MA contraction so far

Humana is not a diversified conglomerate. Medicare Advantage accounted for roughly 85 percent of its total revenue in recent years, a concentration no competitor of comparable size carries. That means a 2-point margin squeeze in MA is not absorbed elsewhere; it drives whole-plan decisions.

Scale the exits against the book. Humana reported individual MA membership of about 4.2 million in early 2025 after completing the 560,000-member reduction, alongside a group MA book of roughly 600,000 members. The company also disclosed an intention to exit the individual MA business entirely within a multi-year horizon, framing the retreat as a path back to at least a 3 percent margin by 2027, per its 2024 investor guidance. That target date coincides with the year in the keyword query.

Two headwinds compound the math. First, the Inflation Reduction Act redesigned Part D in 2025, capping member out-of-pocket costs at USD 2,000 annually and shifting a larger share of catastrophic drug spending onto plan sponsors. Humana's own filings quantified a multi-billion-dollar cumulative Part D headwind across 2024 and 2025. Second, rate notices from CMS set MA payment growth for 2026 near 2 percent, well below the growth in medical cost trend, which compresses the margin on every plan that renews.

Here is the plain-language version: Humana earns a fixed amount per member and pays the medical bills, and when the bills rise faster than the payment, plans near the margin get cut.

Why D-SNP sits on different ground

Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans enroll people who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid. Their payment model differs from ordinary MA in three ways that change the cut calculus.

First, D-SNP revenue includes a Medicaid component administered under a state contract, layered on top of the Medicare capitation. States pay for long-term services, behavioral health coordination, and care management, which means the plan's economics depend on state contract terms as much as on CMS bids. Second, CMS limits D-SNP enrollment to dual-eligible beneficiaries and requires integrated care management, which raises the barrier to entry for competitors and concentrates membership in a few insurers. Third, D-SNPs are the vehicle through which states and CMS pursue Medicare-Medicaid integration, a policy priority that has survived every recent payment rule.

That does not immunize D-SNPs. A plan can be non-renewed in a county where the state contract underperforms, and Humana has consolidated D-SNP offerings where membership was thin. But the direction of the book is opposite to the individual MA retreat. Humana's D-SNP membership grew into the high hundreds of thousands in recent years, and the company has described special needs plans as central to its remaining MA strategy. A near-term, wholesale D-SNP cut runs against both the payment structure and the company's stated direction.

Timeline: what happens when, and when a list becomes knowable

The sequence matters because the keyword asks for a list that legally cannot exist before the bids and filings are complete. CMS does not require insurers to announce exits in advance of the ANOC. Anyone publishing a named 2027 plan list today is guessing or recycling 2025 and 2026 data.

Misconceptions and the professional caveat

The most common error is reading Humana's exit from individual MA as an exit from Medicare Advantage altogether. Group MA and D-SNP are separate books with separate economics, and the company has signaled retention in both.

A second error is treating a plan non-renewal as automatic disenrollment from Medicare. Members of a non-renewed plan keep original Medicare and gain a special enrollment period, and CMS crosswalks many members into a comparable plan unless they choose otherwise.

The counterintuitive detail professionals watch: a plan can survive a county yet still shrink, because insurers thin networks and trim supplemental benefits before they terminate a contract. A plan that keeps its name but drops dental, vision, or over-the-counter allowances is functionally a cut for members even though no termination filing exists. Watch the formulary and the provider directory, not just the plan name.

Red flags worth acting on:

A letter labeled "non-renewal" or "plan termination" rather than "benefit change." Loss of a preferred pharmacy or a specialist from the network mid-year notice. A Star Rating drop below 3 stars for your specific contract, which can trigger CMS enrollment limits. A premium increase that exceeds the Part B premium growth for the same year. Any D-SNP notice referencing a change in the state Medicaid contract, not the Medicare contract.

Practical actions with concrete thresholds

Start monitoring in September 2026, when the ANOC arrives. If your plan is continuing, compare the 2027 formulary against your current prescriptions and confirm each prescriber remains in network.

If your plan is non-renewed, you have a special enrollment period and should compare at least three alternatives in your county during the October 15 to December 7, 2026 window. Check the Star Rating of each candidate; anything below 3 stars warrants scrutiny of the reasons in CMS's plan preview data.

Set a decision threshold. If switching would raise your annual premium and cost-sharing by more than USD 500 for equivalent benefits, model whether original Medicare with a Medigap policy and Part D fits better. For D-SNP members, confirm the new plan holds the Medicaid contract in your state before enrolling, because a D-SNP without the state contract cannot deliver the integrated benefits.

Do not rely on agent summaries alone. Cross-check any 2027 claim against the plan's CMS-filed Evidence of Coverage, which is published before the contract year.

What cannot be concluded yet

No authoritative body has published a 2027 Humana plan termination list, and the company has not named counties or plan types slated for exit. The mechanism explains direction, not specifics. Extrapolating 2025 and 2026 exits into a 2027 list assumes Star Ratings, rate notices, and state Medicaid contracts stay constant, and none of those are final.

The honest position is conditional: individual MA plans in thin-margin counties remain the most exposed category, D-SNP remains structurally protected by its Medicaid layer and policy priority, and the definitive answer becomes public in September 2026. Treat any named list before then as unverified.

This article is general educational information about how Medicare Advantage plan decisions work, not an insurance recommendation or a prediction of specific plan changes. It does not promise outcomes or savings and cannot substitute for your own plan documents. For decisions about your coverage, consult a licensed insurance professional or your State Health Insurance Assistance Program, and for urgent Medicare or Medicaid problems contact 1-800-MEDICARE.