Top 10 US States by Medicare Advantage Plan Availability
PlainMedicare ranks US states by the number of Medicare Advantage plans available to beneficiaries, using the CMS per-state aggregate. Updates automatically as our source data refreshes.
Research period:
Research question
Across the 50 US states and the District of Columbia, which jurisdictions offer the largest number of distinct Medicare Advantage plan options to their beneficiaries, and how does plan availability correlate with state-level market concentration, premium spread, and overall plan quality as measured by average star rating?
Methodology
This ranking is generated automatically from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services's published dataset and reflects the most recently reported figures for each entity. The page updates whenever we refresh our copy of the source data, so the numbers always match the latest release we have ingested.
Coverage and exclusions: entities with no reported value for this metric are left out of the ranking rather than shown as zero, since a missing figure is not the same as an actual zero. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services occasionally withholds a value for confidentiality, small-sample, or quality-control reasons, and those withheld entries are excluded the same way.
Data provenance: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes this dataset on its own release schedule, and we pull each new release as it becomes publicly available. If a later release revises a prior figure, the revised number will appear here automatically the next time we refresh our copy, no part of this page is hand-edited.
Editorial governance: PlainMedicare maintains an editorial standards process covering how rankings are built, how outliers are handled, and how corrections are processed if an entity disputes a figure attributed to it. A named editor reviews this page before publication, shown in the byline above. Corrections and clarifications can be requested through the contact channels linked in the site footer.
Transparency: every number on this page traces back to a specific Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services source record, linked from the entity pages reachable from this ranking. See our methodology page for the full source list, update cadence, and how each figure is derived.
See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
Top 10 US States by Medicare Advantage Plan Availability
Live data, updated automatically whenever we refresh our copy of the source
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the most recent data we have on file. Refresh the page after we update our copy of the source to see the latest values.
| # | State | Plans available | Avg premium | Avg star rating | Five-star plans |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | 188,146 | $8 | 4.05 | 254 |
| 2 | Georgia | 120,734 | $11 | 4.03 | 159 |
| 3 | Virginia | 99,094 | $15 | 4.03 | 133 |
| 4 | Kentucky | 86,639 | $20 | 3.99 | 120 |
| 5 | Missouri | 80,865 | $21 | 4.01 | 115 |
| 6 | North Carolina | 75,547 | $24 | 4.06 | 100 |
| 7 | Illinois | 73,628 | $14 | 4.03 | 102 |
| 8 | Kansas | 70,490 | $28 | 4.01 | 105 |
| 9 | Iowa | 68,142 | $28 | 4.01 | 99 |
| 10 | Tennessee | 67,814 | $23 | 3.99 | 95 |
Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, CMS MA/PD Plan Directory. Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, CMS MA/PD Plan Directory. Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Texas, with a value of 188,146 on the Plans available column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (188,146) and the 10th-ranked record (67,814) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, specifically the CMS MA/PD Plan Directory. PlainMedicare ingests the source vintage published by the agency and republishes it here in a clear, browsable format. Every page reflects our most recent copy of the data, there is no stale cached export, and an update from the source agency propagates to this page within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how each figure is derived.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Plan availability counts reflect distinct CMS contract-plan combinations marketed in the state. Some plans are available in only a subset of counties within a state, so the number of plans a specific beneficiary can choose from is typically lower than the state-level total. CMS plan-availability data is published annually before the Annual Election Period; insurers can withdraw plans or add new plans at any time, though the bulk of changes occur on the annual cycle. Special Needs Plans (SNPs) are counted alongside general Medicare Advantage plans in this aggregation even though they restrict eligibility to specific population subgroups. Beneficiaries in Original Medicare retain access to Part D standalone plans not captured in this Medicare Advantage count.
Sources
- CMS, Medicare Plan Finder Data - https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Prescription-Drug-Coverage/PrescriptionDrugCovGenIn/MAPDPlanDirectoryData