Humana vs Kaiser Permanente in 2027: A Choice Only 118 Counties Get to Make

This article is for general educational purposes only and is not insurance or medical advice. We are not affiliated with the U.S. government, Medicare, Humana or Kaiser Permanente. For official information, visit Medicare.gov or call 1-800-MEDICARE. See our Medical & Financial Disclaimer for details.

Before anything else, the practical fact: Humana sells Medicare Advantage in 2,600 of the country’s 3,131 counties for 2027. Kaiser Permanente sells in 118. If you are not in one of those 118, this comparison is decided for you before it starts, and the useful article for you is our Humana review.

If you are in one of them — most of urban California, Washington, Colorado, Maryland, Georgia, Virginia, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada and Washington D.C. — then you have one of the sharpest choices available anywhere in Medicare Advantage. A year ago these two companies were opposites on almost every measure. On the 2027 star ratings, published by CMS on October 8, 2026, the quality gap has narrowed sharply, and what separates them now is mainly how you want to receive your care.

Side by Side

2027, from the CMS plan file	Humana	Kaiser Permanente	All plans
Distinct plans on sale	861	117	5,522
Counties served	2,600 (83%)	118 (3.8%)	3,131
States and territories	46	10	—
Plans with no monthly premium at all	78.5%	52.7%	69.7%
Median in-network out-of-pocket limit	$6,750	$6,400	$7,100
Plans at the legal maximum of $9,850	26.9%	21.4%	28.2%
Mean overall star rating	4.16	4.47	3.86
Rated plans at 4 stars or better	93.6%	100%	61.2%
Same measure for 2026	35.5%	100%	60.5%
PPO plans	323	0	—

Kaiser still wins the quality and cost-protection rows, though by far less than a year ago, and still loses the two that decide whether you can use it at all.

The Quality Gap Has Nearly Closed

Of Kaiser’s 117 plans for 2027, 115 carry a published star rating. Every single one is four stars or better: 11 at four, 100 at four and a half, and four at the full five. Across the whole market 61.2% of rated plans reach four stars. Kaiser’s figure is 100%, for the second year running.

What has changed is Humana. For 2026 only 35.5% of its rated plans reached four stars, the lowest of any large insurer we counted, and the share of Humana members in four-star plans had fallen from 25% to 20%. For 2027 its plan-level figure is 93.6%, its mean rating 4.16 against the market’s 3.86, and about 93% of its members are in four-star plans. Kaiser is still ahead — its mean of 4.47 is the highest of any large insurer we count, and most of its plans sit at four and a half — but this is no longer a comparison between the best and the worst. It is between the best and the second best.

Kaiser also still protects you a little better when something goes wrong. Its median out-of-pocket limit is $6,400 against Humana’s $6,750, and 21.4% of its plans sit at the $9,850 legal ceiling against 26.9% of Humana’s. On both of the measures that describe what you actually get, Kaiser is ahead — narrowly now on ratings, and by a few hundred dollars on the median limit.

What Kaiser Charges You for It

Two things, and the second is the real one.

A higher chance of a monthly premium. 52.7% of Kaiser’s 2027 plans charge nothing beyond Part B, against 78.5% of Humana’s. Of the Kaiser plans that do charge, the average is about $78 a month in our own count of the CMS file. Over a year that is real money, and for 2027 it is no longer obviously outweighed by the gap in out-of-pocket limits, which has narrowed to $350 at the median.

Your choice of doctor. This is the one that decides it. Kaiser is not an insurer that contracts with independent doctors; it is an integrated system where the health plan, the medical groups and the hospitals are one organization and the doctors are Kaiser’s own. For 2027 it sells no PPO at all. For routine care you use Kaiser doctors in Kaiser buildings, period.

Humana is the opposite by design: 323 of its 861 plans for 2027 are PPOs, more than any other large insurer, so out-of-network care is covered on much of its catalog, at a higher cost and under a second spending limit.

That integration is also why Kaiser’s ratings look the way they do. The measures star ratings are built from — screenings completed, medication managed, follow-up after discharge, coordination between doctors — are structurally easier when one organization holds the whole record. Kaiser is not simply running the same business better. It is running a different business.

One More Thing About Humana

A network is a set of contracts, and contracts end. Eight health systems stopped accepting Humana Medicare Advantage for 2026 — Mayo Clinic and UNC Health among them — and we go through that list, and the longer one for UnitedHealthcare, in our UnitedHealthcare versus Humana comparison. The new star ratings do not bring any of them back.

What matters for this choice is not the list but what it implies. A Humana plan is worth what its network is worth, and that network is renegotiated every fall: the plan you bought can stay identical on paper while the hospital you bought it for walks out of it. That is a risk you carry every year you stay enrolled, not just at the point of sale.

Kaiser has no equivalent risk, for the simple reason that there is no network to leave. That is either the point of Kaiser or the problem with it, depending on who you are.

Prescriptions and Extras: The Rows Nobody Compares

Ratings, premiums and networks are the usual comparison. Two more sets of figures change the answer for many people: what each company charges before your drug coverage starts, and which extra benefits come with the plan. Both are filed with CMS plan by plan. These are each company’s ordinary plans, without special needs plans.

2027, ordinary plans	Humana	Kaiser Permanente	Market
Median drug deductible	$700	$0	$650
Drug plans with no deductible	5.0%	97.6%	10.5%
Drug plans at the $700 maximum	67.0%	0%	36.0%
$0 for the drug part of the premium	75.5%	85.4%	71.7%
Over-the-counter allowance	39.0% (was 52.8%)	73.6%	58.3%
Hearing aids	100%	37.9%	93.7%
Eyewear	100%	62.1%	94.5%
Transportation to medical appointments	17.5%	100%	19.0%
Meal benefit	86.2%	0%	45.0%

Drug rows: our own count from the CMS Landscape files (542 Humana and 82 Kaiser plans with drug coverage). Extra-benefit rows: our own count from the CMS PBP Benefits files (600 Humana and 87 Kaiser ordinary plans).

On prescriptions the gap is wider than on anything in the table at the top of this page. A typical Humana plan with drug coverage makes you pay the first $700 of your covered prescriptions yourself; a typical Kaiser plan makes you pay nothing before cost sharing starts. For someone on several regular medicines, that is up to $700 a year in Kaiser’s favor before premiums are even counted, which narrows or reverses the premium advantage Humana has on paper. Many Humana plans leave cheap generic tiers out of the deductible, so the real gap for you depends on what you take.

The extras split the other way. Humana’s plans almost all include hearing aids, eyewear and a meal benefit, which Kaiser’s mostly do not. Kaiser’s include something Humana’s rarely do: for 2027 every ordinary Kaiser plan pays for rides to medical appointments, in most cases without a limit on trips. And Humana cut its over-the-counter card sharply for 2027, from just over half of its ordinary plans to fewer than four in ten.

How to Decide

The question is not which company is better. On the published numbers Kaiser is still slightly ahead, but for 2027 both are well above the market. The question is whether you are willing to hand your care to one organization.

Kaiser suits you if you have no strong existing ties to doctors outside it, if you are managing several conditions across specialists and want them in one record, and if you would rather pay a predictable monthly amount than carry a higher ceiling. It is, on this evidence, the strongest Medicare Advantage product in the country for someone who fits it.

Humana suits you if you want a PPO, if you travel or split the year between places, if you have a specialist you will not give up, or if the monthly premium is doing real work in your budget. A year ago that meant accepting weaker ratings to keep flexibility. For 2027 the price of that flexibility in quality is small.

One test settles it faster than any table. Write down the doctors you would refuse to change. If the list is empty, Kaiser deserves the first look. If it is not, start with Humana — and check that each of those doctors, and your hospital, is in the specific plan’s network.

If the doctor test leaves you undecided, run two more. First, list the prescriptions you fill every month. If there are several, the drug deductible gap — typically $700 on Humana against $0 on Kaiser — is likely to be the biggest money difference between the two, larger than the premium. Second, list the extras you actually use: if you wear hearing aids, buy new glasses most years or rely on a meal benefit after a hospital stay, Humana’s plans are far more likely to cover them; if you need someone to take you to appointments, Kaiser’s are. The company with the better answer to both lists is usually the better plan for you, whatever the star ratings say.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Kaiser better than Humana? On the 2027 figures, slightly: every rated Kaiser plan reaches four stars against 93.6% of Humana’s, and its median out-of-pocket limit is $350 lower. It is only available in 118 counties, and it requires you to use its own doctors.

Where can I get Kaiser Medicare Advantage? California, Washington, Colorado, Maryland, Georgia, Virginia, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada and the District of Columbia, and only in certain counties within them.

Which is cheaper? Humana, on monthly premium: more than three quarters of its 2027 plans charge nothing beyond Part B against just over half of Kaiser’s. Kaiser is slightly cheaper in a bad year, with a median out-of-pocket limit $350 lower.

Can I see an outside doctor on Kaiser? Not for routine care. For 2027 none of its plans is a PPO; they are closed HMOs and HMO-POS plans where outside care is generally covered only in an emergency.

Weren’t Humana’s ratings the lowest of the big insurers? For 2026, yes. On the 2027 ratings 93.6% of its rated plans reach four stars, the best of any national insurer. Individual plans still vary, so check the specific contract.

Which is better if I take a lot of prescriptions? On the 2027 plan files, Kaiser, clearly: 97.6% of its ordinary drug plans have no drug deductible, while two thirds of Humana’s charge the full $700. Humana’s annual cap on drug costs is the same $2,400, so the difference is mostly in the first months of the year.

Which has better extras? It depends which extra. Humana covers hearing aids and eyewear on every ordinary plan and a meal benefit on most; Kaiser covers rides to appointments on every plan but hearing aids on fewer than four in ten. Humana cut its over-the-counter card for 2027, to 39% of plans.

Bottom Line

A year ago this was the clearest quality-against-freedom trade in Medicare Advantage. For 2027 it is mostly a freedom question. Kaiser still has the best ratings of any large insurer, slightly better cost protection, and a footprint covering under 4% of counties with no out-of-network option. Humana reaches 83% of the country, is far more often free, is built around PPOs, and now has the best ratings of any national insurer.

If both are sold where you live, the decision is not about the companies. It is about whether you are prepared to change doctors. Check which plans are actually offered at your address on the Medicare Plan Finder, and read our separate reviews of Kaiser and Humana before you commit.

What We Counted for This Comparison

Neither company’s figures here come from its own marketing. We counted them in the CY2027 Landscape file that CMS published in September 2026: Humana sells 861 distinct plans and Kaiser Permanente 117, out of the 5,522 on sale nationally. The 2027 star figures come from matching each plan’s contract to its overall rating in the 2027 Star Ratings data tables published on October 8, 2026, and cover the 842 Humana and 115 Kaiser plans that carry one; the 2026 comparison row uses the CY2026 file.

The $78 figure is ours as well: the average monthly premium across the Kaiser plans that charge one, rather than across all of them. What we keep, what we exclude, and why a share of plans is not a share of members, are set out in full on our Editorial Methodology page.

Sources

• CY2027 and CY2026 Medicare Advantage and Part D Landscape files — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, September 2026 versions. Source for every figure in the comparison table other than the 2027 star ratings, including the $9,850 ceiling for 2027, the state and county coverage, the 2026 star figures and the plan-type mix. All calculations are our own, by the method above.
• 2027 Star Ratings Data Tables — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, published October 8, 2026. Source for every 2027 plan-level star figure, matched contract by contract.
• Humana rebounds, Aetna slips: Winners and losers in the 2027 MA star ratings — Fierce Healthcare, October 9, 2026. Source for the share of Humana members in four-star-or-better plans for 2027.
• Humana’s Medicare Advantage star ratings lawsuit dismissed again — Healthcare Dive. Source for the fall from 25% to 20% of Humana members in four-star-or-better plans for 2026.
• Health systems dropping Medicare Advantage plans in 2026 — Becker’s Hospital Review. Source for the eight systems that stopped accepting Humana Medicare Advantage, read on September 23, 2026. Becker’s adds to this list through the year.
• PBP Benefits – 2027 and PBP Benefits – 2026 — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The benefit filings each plan submits. Source for the extra-benefit rows of the prescriptions and extras table (our own count of each company’s ordinary plans).

All figures on this page were checked against the sources above on October 12, 2026, and the Becker’s list on September 23, 2026. The prescriptions and extras table was added on October 17, 2026 from the CMS Landscape and PBP Benefits files. Plan availability and network status change; confirm current details on Medicare.gov before enrolling.

Disclaimer: Plan figures reflect 2027 and 2026 data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and vary by state, county and plan. Always confirm current details directly with Medicare.gov, 1-800-MEDICARE, or a licensed agent before making a decision.