Grand Junction · The 2027 plan list is out

2027 Medicare Advantage Plans in Grand Junction, Colorado

The list we have been telling you to wait for is public. CMS's 2027 landscape file shows 10 Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage in Mesa County, from the same 5 carriers as this year, down from 16. Here is every plan on the 2027 shelf with its premium, out-of-pocket cap and drug deductible, the 8 plans that are not coming back, what happened in Delta, Montrose, Rio Blanco and Garfield counties, and what to do with it before December 7.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 1, 2026 · 10 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner, 22+ years in Medicare

Every Mesa County post we wrote in September ended the same way: the 2027 list becomes public on October 1, and we will not guess before then. It is October 1. CMS posted the CY2027 landscape file at the end of September, revised it on September 30, and under 42 CFR § 422.2263(a) plans "may begin marketing prospective plan year offerings on October 1 of each year." So the numbers below are the real ones, pulled from the file itself and compared line by line against the 2026 file. Two cautions before the tables. First, the file does not carry a 2027 Star Rating for any plan; CMS releases those in October, so ignore any 2027 rating you see before then. Second, Medicare On Main does not offer every plan available in your area, and nothing here ranks one plan over another. It is the list, and what the list means.

Mesa County had 41,709 people on Medicare in June 2026, and 17,134 of them, about 41%, were in a Medicare Advantage plan, per the CMS monthly enrollment file. Everyone in that group gets to choose again this fall. The people in the 8 discontinued plans have to.

The 2027 Mesa County shelf: all 10 plans

Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage ("MA-PD" in the file), sorted by carrier. Premium is the consolidated Part C plus Part D monthly premium, on top of your Part B premium. MOOP is the in-network maximum out-of-pocket for the year. The drug deductible is the plan's annual Part D deductible; the federal cap for 2027 is $700, and the yearly out-of-pocket cap on covered drugs is $2,400 per Medicare.gov.

Source: CMS CY2027 landscape file, Colorado, Mesa County, Contract Category Type MA-PD, read October 1, 2026. Plan names are as CMS lists them. A $0 premium is not the same as no cost; you still pay the Part B premium, copays and coinsurance up to the MOOP.

A few things stand out. Six of the ten are PPOs, three are HMOs and one is an HMO-POS, so the shelf still leans toward plans that let you go out of network at a higher cost. The two lowest caps, $4,900, belong to a $20.00-a-month Humana PPO and a $0 Select Health HMO, which tells you the premium and the cap are separate decisions. And the drug deductibles spread from $300 to the full $700, a $400 difference before a plan pays anything on a brand-name drug for someone who takes one.

The 8 plans that are discontinued for 2027

These 2026 Mesa County plans do not appear anywhere in the 2027 file, in any county in the country. That is a non-renewal, not a service-area change. If you were enrolled in one, your plan was required to mail you a notice at least 90 days before December 31, and our first-steps post walks through what that letter means.

Source: plans present in the CY2026 file for Mesa County and absent from the CY2027 file nationally. Described from the public data; nothing here is a judgment of any company or plan.

Two of the eight have near-namesakes on the 2027 list. HealthSpring Preferred (HMO) under contract H0672 is gone, and a HealthSpring Preferred (HMO) under contract H2752 is new, at $0 with a $7,150 cap. Aetna's two Signature HMO-POS plans are gone, and an Aetna Medicare Signature (HMO) is new, at $0 with a $5,900 cap. A same-name plan under a different contract number is not automatically the same plan: the network, the drug list and the extras can all differ, and whether your enrollment moves on its own or you have to act is spelled out in your letter. This post explains how to tell a crosswalk from a non-renewal.

Select Health went from four Mesa County plans to one, and that one, Medicare Essential (HMO), is also the plan with the lowest cap and lowest drug deductible on the list. Humana went from five to three, with Value Plus and Full Access ending and Value Choice, Essentials Plus Giveback and HumanaChoice continuing. Humana told investors in July it would be closing plans nationally; our July post covered the announcement, and this is what it came to in Mesa County.

Plans without drug coverage, and Special Needs Plans

The MA-PD table is not the whole file. Mesa County also has 3 Medicare Advantage plans with no Part D coverage for 2027, down from 5: Aetna Medicare Eagle (PPO), Humana USAA Honor Giveback (PPO) and Select Health Medicare Veterans (HMO). These exist mainly for people who get prescriptions through the VA and do not want to pay for a second drug benefit. If that is you, the VA and Medicare post covers how the two fit together.

There are 11 Special Needs Plans in the county for 2027, down from 12: nine Dual Special Needs Plans for people with both Medicare and Medicaid, from Aetna, Anthem, HealthSpring, Humana and UnitedHealthcare, and one institutional plan from Longevity Health Plan. UnitedHealthcare's only Mesa County presence in both years is its two D-SNPs; it does not offer a general MA-PD plan here.

Delta, Montrose, Rio Blanco and Garfield

The Western Slope is not one market. Each county has its own list, and the 2027 trims landed harder on the smaller ones.

Source: CMS CY2026 and CY2027 landscape files, Colorado, Contract Category Type MA-PD. Carrier names shortened; Medicare On Main does not offer every plan available in your area.

• Delta County keeps all four of its carriers but drops from 15 plans to 7. The same eight discontinued plans that left Mesa left Delta, and Aetna Medicare Signature (PPO), which continues in Mesa and Montrose, is not on Delta's 2027 list.
• Montrose County goes from 8 plans to 5, still from two carriers, Aetna and Humana. Three of its 2026 plans, one Aetna HMO-POS and two Humana PPOs, are discontinued.
• Rio Blanco County goes from 4 plans to 2, both Humana PPOs: Essentials Plus Giveback at $0 and HumanaChoice at $20.00. One carrier, two plans. The Original Medicare and Medigap door matters more when the shelf is that short.
• Garfield County has no general Medicare Advantage plan with drug coverage in either year. Its only Advantage plans are two UnitedHealthcare Dual Special Needs Plans for people on Medicaid. For everyone else in Glenwood Springs, Rifle and Parachute, Medicare means Original Medicare, a stand-alone drug plan and, for most, a Medigap policy.

If you are going back to Original Medicare: the drug-plan shelf

A discontinued plan gives you a one-time, no-health-questions window to buy certain Medigap plans in Colorado, which the guaranteed-issue post explains in full. That door only works with a stand-alone Part D plan beside it. Colorado has 8 stand-alone drug plans for 2027, from four companies, with monthly premiums from $5.30 to $260.20; there were 10 in 2026. Every one of them carries the $2,400 cap on covered drugs, and the deductibles range from $300 to the full $700. Premium is the wrong way to pick one; whether your drugs are on the list, and at what tier, is the right way, and the drug-check post shows how.

What the list does not tell you

Three things decide most of these choices, and none of them are in the landscape file.

• Whether your doctors are in the 2027 network. Networks change at the same time plans do. St. Mary's, Community Hospital, Family Health West and your specialists each have to be checked against each plan you are considering, for 2027 specifically. How to do that without taking the plan's word for it.
• Whether your prescriptions are covered, and at what tier. The file gives the deductible. It does not give the formulary, the tiers, or which drugs need prior authorization. For most people this is the biggest dollar difference between two $0 plans.
• The Star Rating. Blank in this release. CMS publishes 2027 ratings in October, and a contract that moves up or down a half star is worth noticing, since a 4-star-or-higher rating is what funds a lot of the extras. We will update this post when they land.

Mesa County's health profile is a reminder of why the cap and the formulary outweigh the extras. Per CDC PLACES, 26.6% of adults here live with high blood pressure, 29.8% with obesity and 8.1% with diabetes, conditions that mean regular prescriptions and regular specialist visits, year after year.

The calendar from here

• Now: plans can market 2027 offerings, and Medicare.gov's Plan Finder shows them.
• October 15 to December 7: enrollment. A plan you join in this window starts January 1, per Medicare.gov.
• December 8 through the last day of February: the Special Enrollment Period under 42 CFR § 422.62(b)(1) for people whose plan was discontinued. Medicare.gov's wording: a plan you choose "from December 8–December 31" still begins January 1; a January choice begins February 1. Why December 31 is the real wall.
• January 1: if you were in a discontinued plan and did nothing, you are on Original Medicare with no drug plan and no Medigap policy. What that costs.

What I would do

If your plan is on the second table, start with the Original Medicare and Medigap door, because the guaranteed-issue window is the thing you cannot get back, and compare the 10 plans above against it rather than only against each other. If your plan is on the first table and continuing, read your Annual Notice of Change for the 2027 premium, cap and deductible, then compare them to the columns above; a plan that was the obvious choice in 2026 can be the middle of the pack in 2027. Either way, check the doctors and the drugs before the extras, and make the decision by December 7 so it starts January 1. We do this every October from our Grand Junction office, and by phone anywhere on the Western Slope.

How we know all this: the Medicare On Main Data Desk frames every article with public data — here, the CMS CY2027 and CY2026 Medicare Advantage and Part D landscape files, read directly and filtered to Colorado's Mesa, Delta, Montrose, Rio Blanco and Garfield counties on October 1, 2026; 42 CFR §§ 422.2263 and 422.62 as published on Cornell LII; Medicare.gov's enrollment-period and Part D cost pages; the CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment file for Mesa County; and CDC PLACES for Mesa County health prevalence. 2027 Star Ratings are not yet published and none are stated. Medicare On Main is a licensed independent insurance agency. We do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information we provide is limited to the plans we do offer in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options. Not connected with or endorsed by the U.S. government or the federal Medicare program. Plan names, premiums and limits are reproduced from the CMS file for information; nothing here is a recommendation of, or a judgment about, any company or plan.