The August 2026 CMS enrolment file records 35,940,831 Medicare Advantage lives across 166 parent organisations, with the programme adding 70,390 lives against the prior month and 945,464 since the plan year opened. At the plan-year turn, the industry net shed 200,688 lives, a movement shaped by UnitedHealth losing 887,444 and Humana taking on 1,004,716. In Los Angeles, Kaiser Permanente gained 1,060 lives while Centene lost 314 over the same two months.
The board
12 parent organisations, 78.5% of Medicare Advantage lives. Gap is year-to-date growth minus the market's, in points. Mix is the product split. Select any row to drill into its county and product detail below.
| Parent organisation | Aug 2026 | Share | AEP net | YTD net | YTD % | Gap | YTD | Mix | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNH UnitedHealth | 9,336,261 | 25.98% | -887,444 | -70,654 | -0.75% | -3.45 | |||
| HUM Humana | 7,201,821 | 20.04% | +1,004,716 | +370,138 | +5.42% | +2.72 | |||
| CVS CVS Health / Aetna | 4,217,911 | 11.74% | -119,892 | +111,087 | +2.70% | +0.00 | |||
| KP Kaiser Permanente | 2,069,515 | 5.76% | +602 | +75,313 | +3.78% | +1.07 | |||
| ELV Elevance | 1,901,505 | 5.29% | -308,358 | -25,241 | -1.31% | -4.01 | |||
| CNC Centene | 928,243 | 2.58% | +206 | -36,698 | -3.80% | -6.50 | |||
| HCSC HCSC | 895,665 | 2.49% | -97,612 | +32,130 | +3.72% | +1.02 | |||
| Devoted Devoted Health | 528,505 | 1.47% | +232,835 | +84,448 | +19.02% | +16.32 | |||
| SCAN SCAN Health Plan | 457,856 | 1.27% | +98,605 | +43,630 | +10.53% | +7.83 | |||
| ALHC Alignment Healthcare | 296,228 | 0.82% | +30,860 | +30,619 | +11.53% | +8.83 | |||
| MOH Molina | 223,607 | 0.62% | +15,025 | -11,541 | -4.91% | -7.61 | |||
| CLOV Clover Health | 157,895 | 0.44% | +34,746 | +10,036 | +6.79% | +4.09 | |||
| — Market total | 35,940,831 | 100% | -200,688 | +945,464 | +2.70% | — | |||
Payer strategy — product and county
The plan file says how many. The contract/plan/state/county file says which product and where, and that is where strategy is legible. Below is each carrier's August 2026 product mix, its movement since July 2026, and the shape of its county footprint. Book reassignments are removed from every movement figure; levels are the book as filed.
Contested counties
The counties with the most genuine carrier movement between July 2026 and August 2026, by total absolute change across all parent organisations. Net is the county's own growth; churn is how much moved regardless of direction — a county can be flat and still be a fight.
| County | MA lives | Net | Churn | Biggest gain | Biggest loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles, CA | 976,171 | +2,208 | 4,940 | Kaiser Permanente +1,060 | Centene -314 |
| , | 0 | -4,214 | 4,214 | HCSC -18 | CVS Health / Aetna -2,093 |
| Fairfield, CT | 80,105 | +3,425 | 3,425 | CVS Health / Aetna +1,503 | Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Mutual Ins. Co. +1 |
| , | 0 | -3,171 | 3,171 | HCSC -44 | CVS Health / Aetna -1,313 |
| New Haven, CT | 112,205 | +2,895 | 2,895 | CVS Health / Aetna +1,567 | Highmark Health +0 |
| Tolland, CT | 20,853 | +2,328 | 2,328 | CVS Health / Aetna +1,172 | Centene +58 |
| Queens, NY | 256,968 | +783 | 1,859 | Visiting Nurse Service of New York +528 | Centene -272 |
| Maricopa, AZ | 421,596 | +459 | 1,685 | SCAN Health Plan +397 | Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona -366 |
| Orange, CA | 338,880 | +724 | 1,668 | SCAN Health Plan +361 | Elevance -140 |
| Miami-Dade, FL | 395,153 | +527 | 1,633 | Athena Healthcare Holdings, LLC +371 | Elevance -475 |
What this page is
Every Medicare Advantage member CMS records, every month — who holds them, which product they sit in, and which county they live in. Figures are Medicare Advantage only: local and regional coordinated care plans, PFFS and MSA. Standalone Part D, employer-only direct-contract PDP, cost plans and PACE are excluded and do not read across to Medicaid, Commercial or Exchange.
Nothing here is an estimate or a projection. The enrolment file is the market's own record of what happened, published about four weeks in arrears, and the page is rebuilt from it the day it lands.
Provenance
- Levels and trend — CMS Monthly Enrollment by Plan, 20 files, January 2025 → August 2026.
- Product and county — CMS CPSC Contract/Plan/State/County, July 2026 and August 2026.
- Suppression — CPSC masks any cell of ten or fewer as
*. That is 410,022 lives, 1.14% of the total, reconciled against the plan file. County figures sum unsuppressed cells only, so a plan falling below eleven in a county reads as an exit rather than a decline. - Licence — US Government public domain. No agreement, no cost.
How this page maintains itself
- A scheduled job polls from the 3rd until both files land, checks the column set, row count and total lives against the prior month, then rebuilds this page.
- Product mix, county footprint and the posture lines under each card are all derived from the file. No sentence on this page was written for a particular month except the opening paragraph, and every figure in that was checked back to the data before it shipped.
- Interrupts — a carrier moves more than 2% month on month; an offsetting county pair suggests a reassignment; the file is five days late.