Montrose · Delta · Western Slope · The 2027 plan list is out

Medicare Advantage Plans in Montrose and Delta, CO for 2027

CMS's 2027 landscape file is public, and the two counties south of Grand Junction got the shortest lists on the Western Slope: Montrose County goes from 8 Medicare Advantage drug plans to 5, every one of them a PPO, and Delta County from 15 to 7. Here is every 2027 plan with its own 2026 premium, cap and drug deductible beside it, the 9 plans that are gone from Delta and the 3 gone from Montrose, what Montrose Regional Health has said about Humana, and the calendar through December 7.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 3, 2026 · 10 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner, 22+ years in Medicare

When we published the Mesa County list on October 1, Montrose and Delta got one row each in a table. They deserve their own page, because they are not Grand Junction with a longer drive. Montrose County had 13,181 people on Medicare in June 2026 and 5,454 of them, about 41%, were in a Medicare Advantage plan, per the CMS enrollment file; Delta County had 10,672 on Medicare with 4,985, about 47%, in Advantage, a higher share than Mesa or Montrose. Each county has its own list, set by the CY2027 landscape file CMS posted at the end of September, and plans may market from October 1 under 42 CFR § 422.2263.

Two cautions before the tables. The landscape file carries premiums, caps, deductibles and plan types; it does not carry copays, networks, formularies or extras, and the 2027 Star Rating column is blank in this release. And a plan that keeps its name can still change underneath you, which is why each row below carries the plan's 2026 numbers beside its 2027 numbers. Medicare On Main does not offer every plan available in your area, and nothing here ranks one plan over another.

The 2027 shelf for both counties, with 2026 numbers beside each plan

Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage ("MA-PD" in the file), sorted by carrier. "Where" says which of the two counties sell the plan. 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; PPOs also carry a higher combined in- and out-of-network limit that is not in this file. The drug deductible is the plan's Part D deductible; for 2027 the federal maximum is $700 and every plan caps your spending on covered drugs at $2,400, per the CMS 2027 Announcement. A dash means the plan was not sold in these counties in 2026.

Source: CMS CY2027 landscape file and CY2026 landscape file, Colorado, Montrose and Delta counties, Contract Category Type MA-PD, matched by contract-plan ID. Plan names are reproduced from the CMS file for information only; Medicare On Main does not offer every plan available in your area.

Read the arrows. Montrose's five plans are five of Mesa County's ten, and Delta's seven are seven of the same ten; nothing is sold in Montrose or Delta that is not also sold in Grand Junction. Three Montrose caps went up and two held; in Delta, three went up and three held, and the new HealthSpring HMO arrives at $7,150. The biggest single move on the page is HealthSpring True Choice, a $0 Delta PPO whose cap went from $6,800 to $9,500 and whose drug deductible went from $250 to $700; the plan's name and premium did not change, and that is the point of the table. Aetna Value Care cut its premium from $34.00 to $18.40 and raised its cap from $5,500 to $7,150, a trade that only pays if you have a light year. Humana Essentials Plus Giveback and Select Health Medicare Essential each went from a $0 drug deductible to $450 and $300. HumanaChoice H5216-223 is the only plan in either county that kept the $4,900 cap it had in 2026, and its premium went from $9 to $20.00.

Montrose: five PPOs, no HMO, and what the hospital has said

The one structural change in Montrose County is that the HMO-POS is gone. In 2026 Aetna Medicare Signature (HMO-POS) was the county's only non-PPO plan; it is absent from the 2027 file everywhere. What is left is five PPOs from two carriers, and a PPO is a plan that lets you use providers outside its network at a higher cost share. That matters here more than in most counties because of a notice Montrose Regional Health posted on October 13, 2025: the hospital "will end its contract with Humana Medicare Advantage plans effective January 1, 2026," and "the change will make MRH an out-of-network provider for patients covered by Humana Medicare Advantage plans." The same notice says MRH "will continue to accept Original Medicare and all Medicare Advantage PPO plans, including Humana PPO," and that on a PPO "out-of-pocket costs may vary depending on the individual plan."

Put those two sentences together. Three of the five Montrose plans for 2027 are Humana PPOs. By the hospital's own account, a Humana PPO member can be seen at MRH, but as an out-of-network patient, which means the plan's out-of-network copays and coinsurance apply, and the cap that protects you is the PPO's combined in- and out-of-network limit, a number that is not in the landscape file and is higher than the in-network MOOP in the table. The hospital's notice gives its reasons and we will not referee them; the hospital also says it "cannot advise anyone on what plan to select," and neither does this post. What we can say is that the notice is dated 2025, it says nothing about 2027, and it names no carrier other than Humana. Before you enroll in any of the five, confirm with Montrose Regional Health and with the plan whether the hospital, and the physicians who admit there, are in that plan's 2027 network. Our network-check post shows how to do that without taking a mailer's word for it.

For a Montrose household whose care also runs to St. Mary's or Community Hospital in Grand Junction, the question doubles: every plan has to be checked against both towns' providers, for 2027 specifically.

Delta: seven plans, nine departures, one arrival

Delta County lost more plans than any county on the Western Slope, 15 to 7, while keeping all four of its carriers. Eight 2026 plans are absent from the 2027 file in every county in the country, which is a non-renewal; a ninth, Aetna Medicare Signature (PPO), continues in Mesa and Montrose but is no longer filed in Delta County, which is a service-area change and opens the same enrollment rights. The arrival is HealthSpring Preferred (HMO) under contract H2752, a $0 plan with a $7,150 cap and a $500 drug deductible, which replaces a HealthSpring Preferred (HMO) under contract H0672 that had a $4,700 cap. A same-name plan under a different contract number is not automatically the same plan; this post explains how to tell a crosswalk from a non-renewal, and your letter says which one you got.

Select Health went from four Delta plans to one, Medicare Essential (HMO), which is also the plan with the lowest cap in the county at $4,900 and a $300 deductible. Delta Health in Delta, and the clinics in Cedaredge, Hotchkiss and Paonia, have to be checked against each of the seven plans' 2027 directories; nothing in the landscape file answers that question, and we found no public network statement from Delta Health comparable to Montrose's.

The 9 plans gone from Delta and the 3 gone from Montrose

Source: plans present in the CY2026 file for Montrose or Delta County and absent from the CY2027 file for that county, with a national check for each. Described from the public data; nothing here is a judgment of any company or plan.

If your plan is on this table, your plan was required to mail you a non-renewal notice at least 90 days before December 31, and our first-steps post walks through what that letter means. Doing nothing puts you on Original Medicare on January 1 with no drug plan and no Medigap policy; here is what that costs.

Plans without drug coverage, and Special Needs Plans

The MA-PD table is not the whole file. Montrose has 2 Advantage plans with no Part D coverage for 2027, down from 3, and Delta has 3, down from 5: Aetna Medicare Eagle (PPO) and Humana USAA Honor Giveback (PPO) in both counties, plus Select Health Medicare Veterans (HMO) in Delta. These exist mainly for people who get prescriptions through the VA; the VA and Medicare post covers how the two fit together. Special Needs Plans went from 8 to 5 in Montrose and 11 to 7 in Delta, nearly all of them Dual Special Needs Plans for people with both Medicare and Medicaid, plus one institutional plan from Longevity Health Plan; UnitedHealthcare's only presence in either county is its D-SNPs.

The rest of the Western Slope

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.

Mesa County's ten plans are the superset: the Grand Junction post has that full table, including Anthem's HMO-POS, which is sold in Mesa and nowhere else on this list. Rio Blanco is down to two Humana PPOs, and Garfield has no general Advantage plan with drug coverage in either year.

If you are going back to Original Medicare

A discontinued plan, or a plan that left your county, gives you a one-time window to buy certain Medigap plans in Colorado with no health questions, which the guaranteed-issue post explains in full, including the 63-day clock and which plan letters it covers. That door only works with a stand-alone Part D plan beside it. Colorado has 8 stand-alone drug plans for 2027, down from 10, with monthly premiums from $5.30 to $260.20; every one carries the $2,400 cap on covered drugs. For a Montrose or Delta household whose doctors are split between the local hospital and Grand Junction, the no-network route deserves a serious look beside the plans above, because Original Medicare with a Medigap policy works at any provider that accepts Medicare, in Montrose, Delta, Grand Junction or Denver, with no directory to check. In counties where 26.5% and 28.6% of adults live with high blood pressure and 8.5% and 8.8% with diabetes, per CDC PLACES, the cap and the formulary outweigh the extras.

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 or left their county. A choice made December 8–31 still begins January 1; a January choice begins February 1. Why December 31 is the real wall.
• October: CMS publishes 2027 Star Ratings. Any 2027 rating you see before then is last year's.

What I would do

If you are in Montrose, start with the hospital question, not the premium: ask Montrose Regional Health and each plan, in writing, whether the hospital and its admitting physicians are in the plan's 2027 network, and if the answer is out-of-network, ask for the combined in- and out-of-network cap, because that is the number you would actually be exposed to. Then compare the five PPOs against Original Medicare with a Medigap policy, which has no network at all. If you are in Delta and your plan is on the discontinued table, open the Medigap door first, because the guaranteed-issue window is the thing you cannot get back, and compare the seven plans against it rather than only against each other. Either way, check the doctors and the drugs before the extras, and decide by December 7 so it starts January 1. We do this every October from our Grand Junction office and by phone across the Western Slope, Montrose and Delta included.

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 Montrose and Delta counties on October 3, 2026, with Mesa, Rio Blanco and Garfield from the same files; Montrose Regional Health's October 13, 2025 notice on Humana Medicare Advantage participation, quoted as published; the CMS CY2027 Announcement for the Part D deductible and out-of-pocket threshold; 42 CFR §§ 422.2263 and 422.62 as published on Cornell LII; Medicare.gov's enrollment-period page; the CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment file for both counties; and CDC PLACES for 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, hospital or plan.