Drug plans average $36 a month in 2027. Check yours
In This Issue
What changed: Standalone drug plans average $36 a month in 2027, and your plan letter shows yours.
Today's habit: Save your drugs on Medicare.gov.
The Fine Print: Medicare & You 2027, page 13, and your December 7 lock.
On the calendar: Plan Finder shows 2027 plans on October 1, 2026.
What Changed
Your drug plan's 2027 premium is in the letter due by September 30, and you now have an official yardstick for it. The CMS 2027 landscape release puts the average standalone drug plan at $36 a month in 2027, against $35.09 in 2026. It says 88% of people without Extra Help can buy a basic plan for $10.30 or less.
The point: If your letter shows a 2027 premium well above $36, compare before you let it renew. A $25 monthly gap costs you $300 in 2027.
Your plan's 2027 star rating posts on or around October 8, 2026, per the CMS state fact sheets. Two ratings change your rights. A 5-star plan nearby lets you switch into it once, December 8 to November 30. A plan under 3 stars three years running lets you leave any time, under Medicare's special enrollment rules.
The point: Look up your plan's stars after October 8, 2026. At 3 stars or better, nothing here requires action.
Today's Habit
Connect your Medicare.gov account to Login.gov, ID.me or CLEAR today, then save your drugs and pharmacy inside it.
Plan Finder starts showing 2027 plans on October 1, 2026, per the CMS open enrollment fact sheets. Your saved list is what lets it compare plans on your own prescriptions. Once you connect an old account to one of those services, your old username and password stop working. You'd rather learn that in September than on December 6.
What skipping costs depends on your drugs. At the $36 average, the premium alone comes to $432 for 2027. After October 1, set that premium total beside Plan Finder's yearly cost estimate for your plan. If the estimate runs into four figures, your prescriptions drive your bill and the premium is a sideshow.
- Open Medicare's account log-in options and pick Login.gov, ID.me or CLEAR. Keep your photo ID, Social Security number and Medicare card beside you.
- Sign up with your own email address. Medicare asks you not to use one you share with your spouse.
- If you already have a Medicare account, connect it, and note which service you chose.
- Add each prescription with its strength and how often you take it, copying the names off your pill bottles. Then add the pharmacy you use.
- Save, sign out, and sign back in once to confirm it stuck. Your spouse repeats this in a separate account.
When it's done, you sign in with one service, and your drugs and pharmacy are waiting when 2027 plans load on October 1.
The Fine Print
Your Medicare & You 2027 handbook reaches every Medicare household this month. Page 13 holds the clause a Medigap owner most needs, tucked in the calendar box under January 1 to March 31, 2027.
That window is for Advantage members. During it, the 2027 handbook says, you can't "switch from one Medicare drug plan to another if you're in Original Medicare."
If you have Original Medicare with a separate drug plan, December 7, 2026 is your last routine chance to change drug plans for 2027. Outside a special enrollment period, the plan you hold on January 1 is the plan you keep all year, at its 2027 price. Extra Help and Medicaid enrollees can change monthly.
Say a plan covering your drugs costs $20 a month less than yours. Missing December 7 costs you $240 in 2027.
The same handbook still prints 2026 premiums, because the 2027 amounts weren't ready at press time. Take your 2027 numbers from your plan letter.
On the Calendar
October 1, 2026: Medicare's Plan Finder switches to 2027 health and drug plans.
October 15, 2026: Open Enrollment opens. Any change you make there takes effect January 1, 2027.
General information, not personalised advice. Every figure here comes from the SSA, the IRS, the CMS or the plan document, and carries the year it applies to. Corrections run at the top of the next issue.
— Robert Kessler