Grand Junction · Published the day CMS released them

Medicare Advantage Star Ratings 2027: Grand Junction Plans

CMS posted the 2027 Star Ratings on Medicare Plan Finder this morning, October 8, 2026. Every Mesa County post we wrote since October 1 said the rating column was blank and we would fill it in the day it was not. Here is every 2027 Grand Junction plan with its new rating next to last year's, the ratings behind the ten plans that are being discontinued, how many of your neighbors are in each one, the national shift, and what a half-star should and should not change about your decision before December 7.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 8, 2026 · 9 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner, 22+ years in Medicare

Here is what happened today. The CMS fact sheet says the 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D Star Ratings were "published on the Medicare Plan Finder on Oct. 8, 2026," that they "appear on Medicare Plan Finder for 2027 Open Enrollment, which begins on October 15, 2026 and runs through December 7, 2026, and will impact 2028 MA quality bonus payments." We downloaded the 2027 Star Ratings data tables the same morning and matched the Summary Ratings file, contract by contract, to the plans the CY2027 landscape file lists for Mesa County. The 2026 column comes from the Overall Star Rating field in the CY2026 landscape file, and the enrollment column from the September 2026 CMS county enrollment file. Medicare On Main does not offer every plan available in your area, and a table of ratings is not a ranking by us. It is the government's measurement, reproduced.

Mesa County had 41,709 people on Medicare in June 2026 and 17,134 of them in a Medicare Advantage plan, per the CMS monthly enrollment file. About 26.6% of Mesa County adults live with high blood pressure (CDC PLACES), which is one of the chronic-condition measures these ratings score. If you are one of the roughly 2,618 people in a plan that mailed a non-renewal letter this month, the ratings below are part of your comparison. For everyone else they are a column to read, not a verdict.

Every 2027 Mesa County plan with drug coverage, rated

The rating belongs to the contract (the "H" number before the dash), so plans sharing a contract share a rating. "Part C" is the health-side summary, "Part D" the drug-side summary; the overall rating blends them. "Members" is Mesa County enrollment in September 2026; plans new to the county have none yet. Premiums, out-of-pocket caps and drug deductibles for the same ten plans are in the 2027 Grand Junction plan list.

Sources: CMS 2027 Star Ratings Data Tables, Summary Ratings (2027 columns); CMS CY2026 landscape file (2026 column); CMS CPSC enrollment, September 2026 (members; counts under 11 are suppressed by CMS). HealthSpring Preferred HMO moved from contract H0672 in 2026 to H2752 for 2027, and H2752 shows "Not enough data available" for its overall and Part C ratings.

The three plans without drug coverage

These are built for people with drug coverage from somewhere else, most often the VA or TRICARE For Life. Same contracts, same ratings.

What changed from last year, and the plans that are leaving

Three of the county's contracts moved. Humana H5216, which carries the three largest Mesa County plans and about 7,794 local enrollees across all of its plan numbers, went from 3.5 to 4. Aetna H5521 and Select Health H1994 each went from 4.5 to 4; both contracts kept a 4.5 on one side (Aetna's Part C, Select Health's Part D) and were pulled down by the other. Anthem H4346 and HealthSpring H7849 are unchanged at 3.5 and 3. The fact sheet is direct about this: "Changes in Star Ratings year-over-year are normal and expected and vary by measure," and "the cut points are recalculated each year based on performance during the measurement period." Two measures were added for 2027 (concurrent opioid and benzodiazepine use, and anticholinergic polypharmacy), two were retired, and the two "improving or maintaining" physical and mental health measures tripled in weight. A contract can score the same and move half a star when the yardstick moves.

Then there are the ten 2026 Mesa County plans that do not appear anywhere in the 2027 file. If you got one of those letters, you may be wondering whether your plan was discontinued because it was rated poorly. The ratings say mostly no:

The H5216 and H1994 contracts continue in Mesa County with other plans; the H3931, H4711 and H0672 contracts have no Mesa County plan for 2027. Why plans are discontinued, and what the letter has to say, is covered in why is my Medicare Advantage plan going away? and what to do first when your plan is discontinued.

Six of the ten departing plans sit under contracts rated 4 stars for 2027, including all three Select Health HMOs under a contract that was 4.5 last year. The one departing contract that is genuinely low is HealthSpring's Colorado contract H0672 at 2.5 overall; its replacement in the county, H2752, is too new to carry a rating. A plan leaving is a business decision about that plan's design and economics, which the rating does not measure. Nothing in this table says anything bad about the companies, and neither do we.

What a Star Rating is, and what it is not

Under 42 CFR § 422.166, CMS scores each contract on "a 5-star scale ranging from 1 (worst rating) to 5 (best rating)," using, per the fact sheet, "up to 43 unique quality and performance measures" for plans with drug coverage. The measures are grouped for display into domains such as staying healthy (screenings, tests and vaccines), managing chronic conditions, member experience, complaints and changes in performance, customer service, and, on the drug side, drug safety and pricing accuracy. Three flags matter for reading the Mesa County table:

• "Not enough data available" is not a low score. It means the contract did not have enough measurable members or history; HealthSpring Preferred HMO's contract is in that position.
• The high-performing icon goes to "an MA-PD contract for a 5-star overall rating." The high-performing contracts table lists 15 for 2027. None sells in Mesa County.
• The low-performing icon is assigned when a contract has "any combination of Part C or Part D summary ratings of 2.5 or lower in all 3 years of data." Four contracts carry it nationally for 2027; none of them sells in Mesa County either.

What the rating is not: a measure of whether St. Mary's, Community Hospital or your Grand Valley specialist takes the plan, whether your prescriptions are on its formulary and at what tier, or how your worst year prices out. Those three questions decide what a plan costs you; the stars describe how the contract performed on care and service measures across everyone it covers, in every county, in a prior measurement year. We walked through the network check in will my doctor be in network? and the drug check in how to check if a plan covers your drugs. Do those first.

No 5-star plan in Mesa County, so no 5-star Special Enrollment Period

You may have read that a 5-star plan can be joined almost any time of year. That is true, and it is written at 42 CFR § 422.62(b)(15): an individual "requesting enrollment in an MA plan offered by an MA organization with a Star Rating of 5 Stars" may do so "only once for the contract year ... beginning the December 8th before that contract year through November 30th of that contract year." The catch is the plan has to be sold where you live. We checked all 15 five-star contracts against the CY2027 landscape file. Exactly one has any Colorado row, a UnitedHealthcare contract (H0710) offered in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Fremont, Jefferson, Larimer, Pueblo and Weld counties. Not Mesa, not Delta or Montrose, not Garfield or Rio Blanco. For the Western Slope the enrollment calendar is the ordinary one: October 15 to December 7 for a January 1 start; the January 1 to March 31 Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period for one change if you are in an Advantage plan on January 1; and, for people whose plan was discontinued, the Special Enrollment Period explained in can I change plans after December 7?

How the national picture moved

Table 1 of the fact sheet counts rated MA-PD contracts by overall rating. The 2027 column is thinner at the top and heavier in the middle:

Source: CMS 2027 Star Ratings fact sheet, Table 1. The fact sheet notes the 2026 figures reflect ratings updated in June and July 2026. For 2027, "approximately 37% of MA-PDs (188 contracts) that will be offered in 2027 earned four stars or higher," and "weighted by enrollment, approximately 71% of MA-PD enrollees are currently in contracts that will have four or more stars in 2027."

Mesa County's shelf looks a little better than the country on the share of plans at 4 stars (7 of 10) and a little worse at the top (no 4.5s, no 5s). Both facts are worth exactly one line of your comparison.

How I would use the rating this fall

1. Treat it as one column, read last. Network, formulary, out-of-pocket maximum, premium, then stars. A 4-star plan that does not include your cardiologist is a worse plan for you than a 3.5-star one that does.
2. Read the Part C and Part D split, not just the overall. Aetna's H5521 is 4.5 on the health side and 3 on the drug side; Select Health's H1994 is the reverse at 4 and 4.5. If you take several brand-name drugs, the Part D column is the one that describes your experience.
3. Do not switch for a half-star. Two of the three contracts that moved this year moved on recalculated cut points and reweighted measures, not a change in your plan's benefits. The Annual Notice of Change you received by September 30 is what changed your plan.
4. If your plan was discontinued, the rating of the old contract is irrelevant now. Compare the 2027 shelf on its own terms, and note that the lowest cap in the county is $4,900 and the $0 premium is available on eight plans, per the plan list. The Medigap door, with its own window, is in can I get Medigap if my plan ends?
5. Look the rating up yourself on Medicare Plan Finder from October 15, and ignore any 2027 rating you saw before today; it was last year's.

How we know all this: the Medicare On Main Data Desk frames every article with public data — here, the CMS "2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D Star Ratings" fact sheet and the 2027 Star Ratings Data Tables (Summary Ratings, High Performing Contracts and Low Performing Contracts files), both published and downloaded October 8, 2026; the CMS CY2027 and CY2026 Medicare Advantage and Part D landscape files, filtered to Mesa County, Colorado, for the plan list and the 2026 ratings; the CMS CPSC enrollment file for September 2026 for county enrollment by plan; 42 CFR §§ 422.166 and 422.62 as published on Cornell LII; the CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment file for Mesa County; and CDC PLACES for county health prevalence. Ratings are reproduced at the contract level exactly as CMS publishes them; where CMS reports "Not enough data available" we say so rather than infer. 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 and company names appear as factual reporting of a federal dataset; nothing here is a recommendation of, or a judgment about, any company or plan. This is education, not advice.