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Health insurance giants are cutting back on benefits to maximize their profit.
UnitedHealthcare and Humana — the two largest private health insurance companies for older adults in the US — are canceling several Medicare Advantage plans, affecting nearly 1 million people.
The two major health insurers are ending specific plans in areas where they make less money to protect their corporate profits, according to Healthcare Brew.
According to company reports, they are primarily discontinuing Preferred Provider Organization (PPOs) — flexible doctor-network plans — and ending coverage in less profitable regions.
UnitedHealth Group spokesperson Eric Hausman confirmed to Healthcare Brew via email that about 390,000 members will lose their current plans. Unexpectedly high healthcare usage and rising medical costs caught the company off guard and lowered its stock value in 2025.
About 600,000 people are enrolled in a Humana Medicare plan that is ending in 2027, Humana Chief Financial Officer Celeste Mellet said during a July financial call, representing about 8% of the company’s 7.2 million Medicare members, according to Fortune.
When insurance companies end a plan, their goal is for customers to leave or encourage them to switch to a different plan that typically offers fewer perks and costs the insurer less money, industry experts explained. Humana stated it hopes to retain a large portion of the 600,000 affected members under different plans.
The company focused on cancelling low-profit plans while keeping high-performing ones, rather than cutting coverage evenly across the board, Mellet noted.
However, industry experts told Healthcare Brew that insurance companies are making patients pay more out of pocket, limiting which doctors patients can see, and reducing extra plan perks to handle a recent surge in medical care usage and costs.
An older adult might be able to stay with their insurance company, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get the same level of coverage they had last year—and in many cases, they won’t, Alexis Levy, senior partner at health consulting firm HealthScape Advisors, told Healthcare Brew.
Additionally, several major insurers scaled back dental coverage and increased what patients must pay out of pocket for 2027.
Among top insurers like UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Centene, and Clover Health, Humana was the only company that did not reduce dental benefits. Meanwhile, Clover increased the maximum amount members might have to pay out of pocket by $1,144, the largest increase among these providers.
In the past, roughly 4 million older adults who bought separate prescription drug coverage paid $0 a month in extra monthly insurance fees.
Those $0 drug-only plans are now disappearing. Going forward, nearly all of these policyholders will have to pay a monthly fee for prescription coverage.
Experts noted that for a long time, if an insurer wanted to attract customers, they had to offer a $0 monthly fee option. Now, people are either seeing no $0 options at all or finding that those $0 plans offer far fewer benefits
UnitedHealthcare focused its cuts on plans that let patients see out-of-network doctors, continuing a strategy that favors plans with restricted doctor networks and plans meant for people with specialized medical needs, company leaders reportedly shared during an October earnings call.
Insurance companies are shifting to restricted-network plans because they limit patients to a smaller group of doctors and require referrals. This lets insurers manage how often patients visit doctors or get medical tests, keeping overall spending lower.
At the same time, companies are expanding specialized plans for severe illnesses as the government pays higher subsidies to cover sicker patients, allowing insurers to maintain profitability while closely managing care for complex health conditions.
“We’re still seeing the chronic condition plans as the growth engine for the MA market,” Alexis Levy from HealthScape said.
