Medicare Advantage

A Look at Medicare Plan Availability Near St. Louis Park

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. — If you live here and you're shopping for Medicare coverage this year, it helps to zoom out a little. Plan availability isn't set city by city. It's set by county. And St. Louis Park sits inside one of the largest Medicare markets in Minnesota.

The lay of the land in the west metro

That means the choices in front of you look a lot like the choices facing your neighbors in Edina, Minnetonka, Golden Valley, Bloomington, and Minneapolis proper. All of you share the same county-level menu.

Here's a plain snapshot of what that menu looks like right now, and how to think about it.

How plan counts work across the metro

Medicare Advantage and Part D plans are offered by private insurance companies, but the federal government approves which plans can be sold in which counties. So the count of available plans depends on where you live — not what ZIP code, but what county.

St. Louis Park is in Hennepin County, where 32 Medicare Advantage plans are available for the current plan year, according to CMS Medicare Plan Finder data. Those plans come from 5 carriers offering Medicare Advantage with prescription drug coverage (often called MA-PD).

Nearby counties in the Twin Cities metro — Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, Washington, Scott, and Carver — have their own counts. They tend to be in the same general neighborhood as Hennepin because the metro is served by many of the same carriers, but the exact number and mix of plans can differ from one county to the next.

If a friend in a different county tells you they see a different set of options, that's why.

A note on stand-alone drug plans

One data point that surprises people: Hennepin County currently shows 0 stand-alone Part D plans in the CMS county-level file used for this snapshot. Stand-alone Part D plans are usually paired with Original Medicare (Parts A and B) when someone wants drug coverage but not a Medicare Advantage plan.

In practice, stand-alone Part D plans are generally sold on a broader regional basis, so if you want to confirm exactly what's available to you at your address, the cleanest way is to run your ZIP code through the plan finder at medicare.gov. That will show you the current stand-alone Part D options tied to your location.

What Star Ratings mean (and don't mean)

Every year, CMS rates Medicare Advantage and Part D contracts on a 1-to-5 star scale based on things like customer service, member complaints, and how well the plan manages chronic conditions.

In Hennepin County right now, 0 contracts are rated 4 stars or higher in the county-level data used for this snapshot. That doesn't automatically mean the local market is weak — ratings shift year to year, some newer contracts aren't yet rated, and the star system measures the contract, not necessarily every plan or every experience.

Think of Star Ratings as one piece of information, not the whole picture.

Program-level changes to keep in mind for 2026

Whatever you pick, a few federal rules apply across the board in 2026:

• Part D out-of-pocket cap: $2,100. Once your out-of-pocket spending on covered drugs hits that amount, you pay $0 for covered prescriptions the rest of the year.
• Part D deductible: up to $615. Plans can charge less, but not more.
• The coverage gap ("donut hole") is gone as of 2025. Part D now has three phases instead of four.
• Medicare Prescription Payment Plan. This is optional. It lets you spread your yearly drug costs across monthly payments instead of paying big amounts at the pharmacy counter.
• IRMAA (the income-related surcharge on Part B and Part D) starts above $109,000 in income for a single filer in 2026.
• Enrollment windows: Annual Enrollment Period runs Oct. 15 – Dec. 7. Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment runs Jan. 1 – March 31.

Who this market serves

Hennepin County is home to about 198,000 people age 65 and older. That's a large, active Medicare population, which is one reason carriers continue to offer a wide selection here.

For you as a shopper, it means you have real choices — but also that comparing them takes a little time. Two plans from the same carrier can look nearly identical on the surface and behave very differently when you actually fill a prescription or see a specialist.