Medicare Advantage

Extra Help in Akron: How the $2,100 Drug Cap Fits In

People in Akron can choose from 100 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027, against 113 this year. 30 of this year’s plans are gone, 17 are new to Summit County, and 37 that continue have changed their premium, deductible, plan type or name, 5 of them under a new name.

Extra Help with Medicare drug costs in Akron for 2027: who qualifies, how to apply, and how it fits with the Part D out-of-pocket cap.

AKRON, Ohio — If you're on Medicare here and your prescription bills feel heavier than they should, 2027 brings some real structural changes worth understanding. The federal Extra Help program can lower what you pay for Part D drugs — but to see why it matters, it helps to look at how the pieces of drug-cost math actually fit together next year.

The 2027 cost structure, in plain English

Part D drug coverage in 2027 is built from a few moving parts. Knowing them makes it much easier to see where Extra Help lands.

• Monthly premium. Every Part D plan (whether stand-alone or built into a Medicare Advantage plan) sets its own premium. Extra Help can pay some or all of it, depending on your income level.
• Deductible. The maximum a Part D plan can charge as a deductible is $615 in 2026 and $700 in 2027. Some plans set it lower. Extra Help waives the deductible for those who qualify at the full level.
• Copays and coinsurance. After the deductible, you share the cost of each prescription. Extra Help caps these at set federal amounts that are much lower than typical retail cost-sharing.
• The out-of-pocket cap. This is the big one. Once your out-of-pocket spending on covered drugs hits the annual cap — $2,100 in 2026 and $2,400 in 2027 — you pay nothing more for covered drugs for the rest of the calendar year. The old "donut hole" coverage gap was eliminated in 2025, so Part D now has just three phases: deductible, initial coverage, and catastrophic (where you owe nothing more).

Stacked together, those pieces set an outer limit on what any Medicare beneficiary should pay for covered drugs in 2027. Extra Help pulls that ceiling down further for people who qualify.

Where Extra Help changes the math

Extra Help (sometimes called the Low-Income Subsidy, or LIS) is a federal benefit administered by the Social Security Administration. If you qualify, it can:

• Lower or eliminate your Part D monthly premium (up to a benchmark amount).
• Wipe out the Part D deductible.
• Replace regular copays with small, capped copays set by federal rule.
• Remove any late-enrollment penalty you might otherwise owe for Part D.

Because the cap already exists for everyone — $2,100 in 2026 and $2,400 in 2027 — Extra Help mainly changes what you pay on the way to that cap, and for many people, it means you never come close to it.

Who qualifies for 2027

Eligibility is based on income and resources, and the limits are updated each year. As a general rule, you may qualify if:

• You have Medicare Part A and/or Part B.
• Your annual income falls at or below the federal limit for the program (higher in Alaska and Hawaii).
• Your countable resources (things like bank accounts and investments, not your home or car) fall under the program limit.

If you already have Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or a Medicare Savings Program, you're generally enrolled in Extra Help automatically. Everyone else has to apply — and many people who would qualify never do, simply because they don't realize it.

The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan — a separate tool

Whether or not you qualify for Extra Help, 2027 continues the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan. This is a free, optional program that lets you spread your out-of-pocket drug costs across the calendar year in monthly installments instead of paying big bills at the pharmacy counter. It doesn't lower your total cost; it just smooths the timing. Extra Help remains the program that actually reduces what you owe.

What Akron-area availability looks like

Akron sits in Summit County, where the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services counts 95 Medicare Advantage plans available for 2027, offered by 17 carriers that include prescription drug coverage in their MA-PD plans. Compared with 2026, 17 plans are new, 30 are not returning, 5 have been renamed, and 32 continuing plans change something in their terms — details appear in each plan's Annual Notice of Change. Stand-alone Part D plan counts are handled at the regional level rather than the county level.

Those are availability figures only — not a ranking, and not a promise that any given plan is right for you. With more than 104,000 Summit County residents age 65 or older, the range exists precisely because needs vary. If you get Extra Help, the subsidy travels with you into whichever Part D or MA-PD plan you choose.

How to apply

You can apply for Extra Help in any of these ways, at any time of year:

• Online at ssa.gov/extrahelp.
• By phone with Social Security at 1-800-772-1213.
• In person at a local Social Security office.
• Through the Ohio Senior Health Insurance Information Program (OSHIIP), Ohio's free SHIP counseling service, which can walk you through the form.

For questions about how a Part D or MA-PD plan handles costs, call 1-800-MEDICARE or use the Plan Finder at medicare.gov.