Medicare Advantage

Counting Medicare options in Evansville for 2027

Medicare in Evansville: how many plan options are listed in Vanderburgh County — counts, key dates, and where to compare.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — If you're turning 65 soon, or you're already on Medicare and thinking about a change during this fall's Annual Enrollment Period, the first question is usually the same: how many choices do I actually have? In the Evansville area, the answer has been: quite a few.

Evansville sits in Vanderburgh County, where Medicare Advantage shoppers had 57 plans to consider for the 2026 plan year, according to the federal Medicare Plan Finder data. The 2027 count will appear on Plan Finder for the new plan year; each current plan's Annual Notice of Change also spells out what's changing.

Here's a plain-language look at what's on the menu locally, and where to get help making sense of it.

How many Medicare choices are in the Evansville area?

Medicare plan availability is set at the county level, not the city level. Because Evansville is in Vanderburgh County, the county numbers are what apply to you.

For 2026, Vanderburgh County shows:

• 57 Medicare Advantage plans available to individual shoppers.
• 7 carriers offering Medicare Advantage plans that include drug coverage (MA-PD) in the area.
• Indiana has 10 stand-alone Part D plans for 2026, sold statewide — if you stay on Original Medicare, you can join any of them. (If you stay on Original Medicare, stand-alone Part D options are still available statewide; check Plan Finder using your ZIP.)
• Under CMS's 2026 Star Ratings, 4 contracts offering Medicare Advantage plans in the area are rated 4 stars or higher.

For context, roughly 32,961 people age 65 and older live in Vanderburgh County, so this is a large, active Medicare market.

Why the plan count matters (and why it doesn't)

Fifty-seven plans sounds overwhelming, but you'll never realistically compare all of them. Once you filter by the things that matter to you — your doctors, your prescriptions, your pharmacy, whether you travel — the list usually shrinks fast.

The plan count is useful for one reason: it tells you the market is competitive. You have real choices, and you're not stuck with a single option. It does not tell you which plan fits your health needs. Only a side-by-side comparison on Medicare.gov can do that.

What Star Ratings mean — and don't mean

Medicare's Star Ratings grade Medicare Advantage and Part D contracts on a 1-to-5 scale, looking at things like customer service, member complaints, and how well plans manage chronic conditions. Higher-rated contracts can enroll members year-round through a special "5-star" enrollment period.

For the current cycle, no contracts operating in the Vanderburgh County area are listed at 4 stars or above. That doesn't mean plans here are bad — ratings are assigned at the contract level (which can span many states) and they shift each year. It just means Star Ratings shouldn't be your only filter locally.

Program-wide changes worth knowing for 2027

Whatever plan you land on, some federal Part D changes apply everywhere in the country:

• Part D out-of-pocket cap: $2,100 in 2026 and $2,400 in 2027. Once your out-of-pocket spending on covered drugs hits that amount in a calendar year, you pay nothing for covered prescriptions the rest of the year.
• Part D maximum deductible: up to $615 in 2026 and up to $700 in 2027 (plans can set a lower deductible, but not higher).
• The old "donut hole" coverage gap is gone. Part D now has three phases instead of four, a change that took effect in 2025 and continues into 2027.
• Medicare Prescription Payment Plan. This optional program lets you spread your drug costs across the calendar year in monthly payments instead of paying big amounts at the pharmacy counter. You have to opt in.
• IRMAA (income-related surcharges) for Part B and Part D begin above $109,000 in income for a single filer in 2026, based on your 2024 tax return.

Key dates for Evansville shoppers

• Annual Enrollment Period: October 15 – December 7, 2026. This is when most people compare plans and switch for the coming year. Changes made in this window take effect January 1, 2027.
• Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment: January 1 – March 31. If you're already in a Medicare Advantage plan, you get one chance during this window to switch to a different MA plan or return to Original Medicare (with a stand-alone Part D plan).

Missing these windows usually means waiting a full year, so put them on the calendar.