Medicare Advantage

What’s Changing in Hawaii Medicare Advantage for 2027: 6 Plans Leaving, 15 Changing

HONOLULU — Hawaii's Medicare Advantage menu is shifting again for the 2027 plan year, and every one of the state's five counties will feel at least some of the movement. According to the CMS Medicare Advantage Landscape Source Files, Hawaii will have 46 Medicare Advantage plans available for 2027, compared with 44 for 2026. Six plans offered somewhere in the state for 2026 will not be offered anywhere in Hawaii for 2027, 15 plans continuing into 2027 will differ in at least one county on something CMS tracks, 8 plans will be new, and 23 will continue unchanged. Wellcare is listed in the CMS file as a carrier with no Hawaii Medicare Advantage plans for 2027.

Medicare AdvantageHawaii

Here is what that means for you, and the dates to keep in front of you.

What the statewide numbers mean

CMS publishes a Landscape Source File each fall that lists every Medicare Advantage plan available in each county. Comparing the 2026 file with the 2027 file is how we know what is leaving, what is new, and what is changing.

In the CMS files, a plan is counted as leaving if it was offered somewhere in Hawaii for 2026 and is offered nowhere in Hawaii for 2027. A plan is counted as changing if it is offered in both years but differs in at least one county on premium, drug deductible, plan type, or plan name as recorded in the file. A plan is continuing unchanged if those tracked fields match across the two years in the counties where it is offered.

Statewide for Hawaii: 44 plans for 2026, 46 for 2027, with 6 leaving, 15 changing, 8 new, and 23 continuing unchanged. Each plan is counted once statewide, no matter how many counties it serves.

If your plan is leaving for 2027

If your current Medicare Advantage plan is one of the 6 not being offered anywhere in Hawaii for 2027, your carrier is required to send you a non-renewal notice. That letter is important — keep it.

Two things to know:

1. You get a Special Enrollment Period. When a plan is not renewed, Medicare provides an SEP that runs through the end of February. That means you can choose a new Medicare Advantage plan, or return to Original Medicare and consider a stand-alone Part D drug plan, during that window.

2. Doing nothing has consequences. If your plan is leaving and you make no choice by the time coverage ends, you can be returned to Original Medicare without drug coverage. That is why the non-renewal letter matters: it tells you your plan will not be there on January 1, 2027.

The simplest path is to use the Annual Enrollment Period (October 15 – December 7, 2026) to pick your 2027 coverage, so it starts cleanly on January 1.

If your plan is changing for 2027

Of the plans offered in both years, 15 differ in at least one county on something CMS tracks in the Landscape file — premium, drug deductible, plan type, or plan name. We are not going to tell you what changed or by how much, because the authoritative source is the document your carrier mails you: the Annual Notice of Change, or ANOC.

The ANOC arrives in September. It compares your 2026 plan, side by side, with the 2027 version of that same plan. Read it with your prescription list and your doctors in front of you. If anything in the ANOC does not work for you, the Annual Enrollment Period is when you switch.

If you do nothing, you stay in your plan and the changes described in the ANOC take effect automatically on January 1, 2027.

The counties with the most change

Every Hawaii county sees at least one plan leave or change for 2027. From the CMS files:

• Honolulu County: 4 leaving, 10 changing
• Maui County: 4 leaving, 8 changing
• Kauai County: 4 leaving, 7 changing
• Hawaii County: 5 leaving, 5 changing
• Kalawao County: 3 leaving, 3 changing

Those are county-level counts of plans affected, not a judgment about any plan. A plan that is "changing" in your county may still be a fit for you — the ANOC will tell you.

What to do before December 7

A short checklist for the Annual Enrollment Period, October 15 – December 7, 2026:

• Open your mail in September and October. Look for the Annual Notice of Change from your current plan, or a non-renewal letter if your plan is leaving.
• Make a short list of your prescriptions, your doctors, and the pharmacies and facilities you want to keep using.
• Compare your options on Medicare.gov using the Plan Finder, which draws from the same CMS Landscape and Plan Finder data.
• Confirm your choice by December 7, 2026, for a January 1, 2027 start date.
• If your plan is being non-renewed and you miss December 7, remember the Special Enrollment Period runs through the end of February.

Where to get free help

You do not have to sort this out alone, and you do not need to pay anyone to help you.

• Medicare.gov — the official site to compare plans in your ZIP code.
• 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Hawaii SHIP (State Health Insurance Assistance Program) — free, one-on-one Medicare counseling from trained local counselors who do not sell insurance.

The CMS Medicare Advantage Landscape Source Files for the current and coming plan year are the basis for the year-over-year counts in this article.