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 | This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling.(October 2025) |
The 2025 Health Insurance Open Enrollment (or annual enrollment) for Medicare, spanning October 15, 2025, to December 7, 2025 [1] occurs during a highly volatile period in the United States healthcare medical insurance market. This is due to a range of compounding factors: anti-inflation measures mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill of the Second Trump Administration [2] [3] [4] to rising health care costs, [5] declining profits, and the projected decline in the number of Medicare Advantage clients (the most in 15 years), the great bulk of insurance providers have perforce changed their business models and thoroughly reconfigured the plans they now have on offer; some insurance companies have pulled out of certain markets entirely. [6] [7] [8] [6] E.g., UnitedHealth, Humana, and Aetna have eliminated hundreds of counties, and even states from their Medicare Advantage plans. [9] [10]
All in all this open enrollment period has been called by the advocacy group 65 Incorporated "the most important in Medicare's 60-year-history", [11] and given the thoroughgoing scale of changes eligible seniors have been advised to examine the candidates for their new plans in detail as never before. (In the absence of a new plan, they default to Original Medicare, which does not cover prescription drugs. [12] Between 8 and 12 Medicare Part D stand-alone prescription drug plans will be on offer in 2026, depending on the state.) [2] Medicare trustees, for example, estimate that Part B (physicians' services) premiums alone are estimated to increase by $21.50 to $206.50 in 2026. [11] [13] All plans include a $2,100 on out-of-pocket costs for covered prescription drugs, a $100 increase from 2025 [14] Etc. Which healthcare providers are in "in-network" should also be scrutinized. [15] [16]
