Newsroom · Salt Lake County, Utah

Lowest-Cap Medicare Advantage Plans in Salt Lake County 2027

The question in the HealthSpring Premier letter is really this one: your plan had a $3,500 cap, the lowest in the county, and it is being discontinued. What is the lowest cap you can buy in Salt Lake County for 2027? The answer from the CMS file is $4,700, and here are all 22 plans ranked by it.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 6, 2026 · 9 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner

If you are holding a HealthSpring Premier non-renewal letter, you probably chose that plan for one number. In 2026 it carried a $3,500 in-network cap at $0 a month, and in every one of its six counties it was the lowest cap on the shelf by at least $1,400. We covered the exit itself on October 3 (the Cigna-to-HCSC-to-HealthSpring chain and the two plans), and the full 2027 Salt Lake County shelf on October 2. This post answers the narrower question people are asking us by phone: which 2027 plan has a cap near the one I am losing? The honest answer is none, and the rest is how close you can get and what the gap costs.

All 22 Salt Lake County plans for 2027, ranked by in-network cap

General Medicare Advantage drug plans (no special needs plans), from the CMS 2027 landscape file, matched to the 2026 file by plan number so a renamed plan still shows its own history. "2026 star" is the plan's 2026 overall rating; 2027 ratings are blank in the file until CMS publishes them this month.

Source: CMS CY2027 and CY2026 landscape files, Salt Lake County, MA-PD rows with SNP indicator "No", compared by Contract ID and Plan ID on October 6, 2026. Premium is the monthly consolidated Part C + D premium; the cap is the in-network maximum out-of-pocket amount. PPO plans also have a combined in- and out-of-network limit the file does not carry. Listing a plan is not a recommendation.

The four 2026 plans that are not on the 2027 shelf

The pattern is the same one we saw in San Diego County: the lowest-cap plan on the shelf is the one leaving. HealthSpring Premier was $1,400 below the next-lowest cap in Salt Lake County in 2026 (UnitedHealthcare UT-0003 at $4,900, $55 a month). The Select Health + Kroger plan and the two PPO exits each have their own post. The Humana Value Choice row deserves one more sentence: the 2026 plan number H5216-456 is gone, a new H5216-471 with the same name and a lower $5,000 cap is here, and only your letter says whether Humana is moving you across or ending your plan outright. Here is how to tell the two letters apart.

Where the caps landed: the shelf in bands

Computed from the two landscape files. 2026 figures include the four departing plans; 2027 figures include the two new ones. 15 of the 22 2027 plans have a $0 plan premium (you still pay Part B).

Two things stand out. First, the sub-$5,000 tier is small (5 plans) and all of them come from two companies, Humana and UnitedHealthcare. Second, the plans whose caps fell (Humana Total Complete, UnitedHealthcare UT-4, Humana Value Choice H7617-032 and the UnitedHealthcare Giveback PPO) fell by $300 to $1,750, while the plans whose caps rose (Aetna Signature HMO and PPO among them) rose by $250 to $1,350. A plan that was mid-shelf in 2026 can be top or bottom in 2027; rank by the 2027 number, not by memory.

Premium times twelve plus the cap: the number a $0 premium hides

Medicare.gov is plain about what the yearly limit is: once you reach it, you pay nothing for covered Part A and B services from in-network providers for the rest of the year. It is equally plain about what the limit is not: it does not include your plan premium, and it does not include Part D drug costs, which have their own federal cap ($2,400 in 2027) and a drug deductible of up to $700 (CMS 2027 Announcement). So the cleanest way to compare a $158 plan with a $5,500 cap against a $0 plan with a $6,350 cap is to add a year of premium to the cap. Here are the six plans with the lowest medical worst case on that measure.

Arithmetic on the landscape file's premium, in-network cap and Part D deductible. The last column is not a true drug worst case (that is the $2,400 federal threshold, which the deductible counts toward); it shows that the deductible alone moves the ranking. Copays, drug tiers and networks are not in the file and can matter more than any of this. Not a recommendation.

Outside Salt Lake County: the floor in HealthSpring Premier's other five counties

HealthSpring Premier was sold in six counties, and the lowest 2027 cap is not the same in all of them. Utah County is included because it is next door and shares the same floor.

Source: CMS CY2027 landscape file, MA-PD rows per county. No Utah county has a 2027 general drug-plan cap below $4,700. Tooele, Box Elder and Morgan and Davis and Weber each have a full county post.

If the cap was the reason: the Medigap door

Some people chose a $3,500 cap because they wanted a ceiling, and a $4,700 or $4,900 ceiling with a $700 drug deductible on top is a different product. A discontinued plan opens a door that is normally closed after your first year on Medicare. Per Medicare.gov, when your Medicare Advantage plan leaves Medicare or stops serving your area you may buy Medigap Plan A, B, D, G, K or L (C or F if you were eligible before 2020) with no health questions, applying as early as 60 days before and no later than 63 days after your coverage ends: November 1, 2026 through March 4, 2027.

• Plan G pays Medicare's gaps after the Part B deductible ($283 in 2026, per CMS), so there is no cap because there is nothing left to cap. The trade is a monthly premium that rises with age under Utah's attained-age pricing, and a separate drug plan. Plan G versus Plan N in Utah covers the choice.
• Plan L is the Medigap plan built like a capped plan: you share costs until you reach its limit, $4,000 in 2026 per the Medicare.gov benefit chart, then it pays 100 percent. Plan K's limit is $8,000. Both are guaranteed-issue in this window, and both are usually priced well under Plan G.
• Utah's birthday rule is a different door. It lets people already on Medigap switch each year without health questions; it does not get you from an Advantage plan into Medigap. The discontinuation right above is what does that. The Utah rule in detail.

Any provider that accepts Medicare, no network, no referrals. Price a Plan G or Plan L premium against the worst-case table above and the choice usually becomes clear within one phone call.

The calendar from here

The letter is required by 42 CFR § 422.506 at least 90 days before the plan ends, which is why it is dated October 2. It does not mean you are losing Medicare and it does not mean your doctors are leaving. Choose between October 15 and December 7 so the new coverage starts January 1 (Medicare.gov). The Special Enrollment Period from December 8 to February 28 is a net, not a plan: a January pick starts February 1, and January would be spent in Original Medicare with no drug coverage and no cap at all.

What I would do this week

1. Decide whether the cap was the reason or a bonus. If it was the reason, price the Medigap door first; the window opens November 1 and there is no reason to wait for December.
2. If you are staying in Medicare Advantage, shortlist the 5 plans at $5,000 or under and check each one's network against your doctors and its formulary against your prescriptions before you look at anything else. A $4,700 cap at a hospital you cannot use is not a cap.
3. Use the premium-plus-cap column, not the premium. Then add the drug deductible. A $49 plan and a $0 plan at the same cap are $588 apart before anyone gets sick.
4. Read the Humana letter twice if you were on Value Choice. A crosswalk to H5216-471 and a non-renewal are different letters with different rights.
5. Enroll between October 15 and December 7. CMS honors the last enrollment request, so an early choice can still be changed inside the window.

How we know all this: the Medicare On Main Data Desk frames every article with public data — here, the CMS CY2026 and CY2027 landscape files compared by Contract ID and Plan ID for Salt Lake and six other Utah counties, Medicare.gov's pages on Medicare Advantage costs, Medigap benefits and guaranteed-issue rights, the CMS 2027 Announcement's Part D parameters, the CMS 2026 Part B fact sheet, and the federal rules on non-renewal notices and enrollment periods. Mentioning a carrier is factual reporting, not endorsement or criticism; ranking plans by one number from a federal file is not a recommendation. This is education, not advice; confirm plans, costs and eligibility with a licensed agent or Medicare.gov. We take no payment from any carrier to feature a plan.