Just over 34.4 million people were enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans as of Feb. 1, representing fairly slim growth across the program's annual enrollment period.
Enrollment grew by 3.8% from February 2024 to February 2025, according to anticipated data released this week from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. This would make for the lowest growth rate in more than a decade, according to researchers at KFF.
The KFF analysts said enrollment in MA has more than doubled since 2010.
The past year has been a complicated one for the MA market, as insurers grappled with a one-two punch of regulatory change and elevated utilization.
Several of the country's largest insurers faced medical loss ratios in the realm of 90% as services, such as orthopedic surgeries, pushed off during the COVID-19 pandemic came back. Despite the headwinds, and some enrollment losses among them, three companies continue to dominate MA nationally: UnitedHealthcare, Humana and CVS Health's Aetna.
Based on a review of the data conducted by Fierce Healthcare, UnitedHealth added close to 400,000 members to reach 9.9 million, the largest tally in the U.S.
Humana, meanwhile, made good on its plans to shed some members to stabilize its finances. It lost more than 410,000 enrollees, in line with its estimates that its membership would decrease by a "few hundred thousand" people.
Humana's total MA enrollment was just over 5.8 million as of February.
Aetna had about 4.1 million MA members as of February, which did increase from a year ago. But, similar to Humana, CVS Health has been focused on a $2 billion cost-cutting effort that could have an impact on how it approaches marketing its plans and growth targets for its membership.
While MA hasn't been a leading topic for the Trump administration in its early days, experts told Fierce Healthcare late last year that how the White House could approach the program is uncertain. Greg Gierer, a principal with Health Management Associates, for instance, said a Republican administration in general is likely to be friendly to the industry.
President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the CMS, television personality Mehmet Oz, M.D., has previously expressed support for Medicare privatization and owns stock in UnitedHealth Group.
However, Gierer noted, the pushback on MA has also been bipartisan. Just this week, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a prominent Republican, put pressure on UnitedHealth, demanding to see details on its billing practices in MA. The Justice Department is also investigating the company's billing practices.