June 2026 data briefing: February 2026 enrollment ingested
The February 2026 Medicare Monthly Enrollment file is live across the site. Five things worth knowing from this cycle, each linked to its updated answer page.
The five biggest things in this release
| # | Shift | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | National MA+other share stands at 57.8% of 70.8M beneficiaries; the pure-MA plan-year basis holds its first majority at 50.8%. | National trend |
| 2 | Puerto Rico remains the highest-penetration jurisdiction at 82.1%; Alaska the lowest at 31%. | State table |
| 3 | County momentum leader on the April 2026 CMS county file: De Soto Parish, LA at +7.2 pts YoY to 56.1%. | County momentum |
| 4 | The 2026 plan-exit wave keeps reshaping share: 2.1M displaced members, 62% of whom actively shopped. | Plan exits |
| 5 | Star pressure continues: Humana's derived carrier average sits at 3.4★, the steepest tracked decline since 2023. | Star movement |
Shifts 1–3 are computed from the ingested release; 4–5 carry forward from their annual sources (vintages on each page).
Sales trigger watch
Standing trigger taxonomy for sales teams, recomputed on every ingest: EXIT (a competitor left plans or counties), STAR (a carrier's weighted rating sits below the 4.0★ bonus threshold), BENEFIT (modeled benefit value cut beyond 10%, labeled modeled). Each trigger links to the page a rep or sales-ops analyst would act from.
| Trigger | Signal this cycle | Act from |
|---|---|---|
| EXIT | UHC terminated 62 plans (930K members) across 13 states. | AEP target markets |
| EXIT | Centene terminated 34 plans (520K members) across 6 states. | AEP target markets |
| EXIT | Elevance terminated 16 plans (300K members) across 4 states. | AEP target markets |
| EXIT | Aetna terminated 14 plans (200K members) across 3 states. | AEP target markets |
| EXIT | BCBS terminated 11 plans (142K members) across 3 states. | AEP target markets |
| STAR | Centene derived carrier average at 3.1★, below the 4.0★ bonus threshold (-0.3 since 2023). | Battlecards |
| STAR | Humana derived carrier average at 3.4★, below the 4.0★ bonus threshold (-0.4 since 2023). | Battlecards |
| STAR | UHC derived carrier average at 3.8★, below the 4.0★ bonus threshold (-0.2 since 2023). | Battlecards |
| BENEFIT | UHC modeled benefit value -23.9% vs 2022 baseline (modeled, never citable as CMS data). | Battlecards |
| BENEFIT | Humana modeled benefit value -14.7% vs 2022 baseline (modeled, never citable as CMS data). | Battlecards |
County-level triggers (a competitor exits a specific county, star drop events on contract level) join this table as the CPSC and disenrollment pipelines land; see the roadmap cards on the sales hub. Forward-looking triggers pointed at January 1, 2027 are tracked on the 2027 disruption pipeline.
Get the 5 biggest shifts in Medicare data, monthly
One email per CMS release cycle: what changed in the new data, the five largest market shifts, and links to the updated answers. No product news, no filler.
No spam, unsubscribe anytime. See the privacy policy. Latest issue: Data release briefings →
Provenance — MA enrollment & penetration by state
- Source file
- Medicare Monthly Enrollment (CCW-derived national, state and county beneficiary counts; data.cms.gov dataset
d7fabe1e-d19b-4333-9eff-e80e0643f2fd, public API) - Vintage
- April 2026
- Last updated
- July 31, 2026
- Refresh cadence
- Monthly (CMS publishes ~3 months in arrears)
- Method
- State-level rows pulled from the Medicare Monthly Enrollment API; MA share = MA_AND_OTH_BENES / TOT_BENES. Refreshed via automated pipeline from the CMS public API.
- Known limitations
- Health plan share here is measured against all Medicare beneficiaries (Parts A and/or B), not the KFF eligible-only basis, which runs ~4pts higher.