Talleyrand IntelligenceThe facts. Your judgement.

Growth has moved off the annual enrolment period and into the year: January lost 200,688 members, the months since added 756,368. UnitedHealth shed 887,444 lives at the plan-year turn and Humana took on 1,004,716. CVS Health / Aetna is now 0.17 points from overturning a standing claim. The file records 35,751,735 Medicare Advantage lives across 168 parent organisations.

Lives · May 2026
35,751,735
168 parent organisations
Month on month
+73,760
+0.21% against the prior month
Year to date
+756,368
+2.16% since the plan year opened
Annual enrolment net
-200,688
-0.57% Dec → Jan
plan year 202635,751,735Jan 25May 25Sep 25Jan 26May 26

The board

12 parent organisations, 78.6% 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 organisationMay 2026ShareAEP netYTD netYTD %GapYTDMixTrend
UNH UnitedHealth9,315,19326.06%-887,444-91,722-0.98%-3.14
HUM Humana7,172,27820.06%+1,004,716+340,595+4.99%+2.82
CVS CVS Health / Aetna4,188,52411.72%-119,892+81,700+1.99%-0.17
KP Kaiser Permanente2,054,7075.75%+602+60,505+3.03%+0.87
ELV Elevance1,899,1375.31%-308,358-27,609-1.43%-3.59
CNC Centene948,2852.65%+206-16,656-1.73%-3.89
HCSC HCSC890,7192.49%-97,612+27,184+3.15%+0.99
Devoted Devoted Health500,9121.40%+232,835+56,855+12.80%+10.64
SCAN SCAN Health Plan447,7461.25%+98,605+33,520+8.09%+5.93
ALHC Alignment Healthcare289,3950.81%+30,860+23,786+8.96%+6.79
MOH Molina225,0100.63%+15,025-10,138-4.31%-6.47
CLOV Clover Health156,3900.44%+34,746+8,531+5.77%+3.61
Market total35,751,735100%-200,688+756,368+2.16%
HMOPPOSNPGroup Product mix — individual HMO and PPO shown separately from SNP and employer group

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 April 2026 product mix, its movement since February 2026, and the shape of its county footprint. Book reassignments are removed from every movement figure; levels are the book as filed.

UNHUnitedHealth-36,707
HMO +2,097 PPO -22,838 SNP -12,102 Group -3,830
2,905 counties · grew in 1,223 · shrank in 1,536 · entered 7 · left 2 · top-10 counties = 15% of gains
national footprint · contracting · shedding PPO · adding HMO
HUMHumana+102,875
HMO +15,553 PPO +45,614 SNP +43,741 Group -1,334
2,667 counties · grew in 1,997 · shrank in 547 · entered 3 · left 5 · top-10 counties = 12% of gains
national footprint · growing above market · shedding Group · adding PPO
CVSCVS Health / Aetna+22,739
HMO +2,240 PPO +7,766 SNP +13,485 Group -752
2,529 counties · grew in 1,372 · shrank in 904 · entered 9 · left 7 · top-10 counties = 15% of gains
national footprint · growing with market · adding SNP
KPKaiser Permanente+11,117
HMO +6,689 PPO +14 SNP +3,825 Group +589
143 counties · grew in 107 · shrank in 25 · entered 4 · left 2 · top-10 counties = 53% of gains
concentrated footprint · growing above market · adding HMO · HMO-led (64%)
ELVElevance-11,216
HMO -14,483 PPO -1,677 SNP +3,946 Group +998
1,841 counties · grew in 733 · shrank in 819 · entered 21 · left 14 · top-10 counties = 28% of gains
multi-state footprint · contracting · shedding HMO · adding SNP
CNCCentene-3,786
HMO +2,297 PPO -6,167 SNP +134 Group -2
1,590 counties · grew in 659 · shrank in 801 · entered 20 · left 12 · top-10 counties = 32% of gains
multi-state footprint · contracting · shedding PPO · adding HMO
HCSCHCSC+4,389
HMO +8,197 PPO +1,807 SNP -5,992 Group +377
918 counties · grew in 490 · shrank in 286 · entered 8 · left 9 · top-10 counties = 24% of gains
multi-state footprint · growing above market · shedding SNP · adding HMO · HMO-led (70%)
DevotedDevoted Health+19,551
HMO +5,537 PPO +7,138 SNP +6,876
872 counties · grew in 601 · shrank in 204 · entered 15 · left 5 · top-10 counties = 28% of gains
multi-state footprint · growing above market · adding PPO
SCANSCAN Health Plan+11,339
HMO +7,785 SNP +3,439 Group +115
41 counties · grew in 31 · shrank in 10 · left 3 · top-10 counties = 79% of gains
concentrated footprint · growing above market · adding HMO · HMO-led (80%)
ALHCAlignment Healthcare+7,729
HMO +5,418 PPO +384 SNP +1,897 Group +30
45 counties · grew in 39 · shrank in 5 · left 1 · top-10 counties = 75% of gains
concentrated footprint · growing above market · adding HMO · HMO-led (67%)
MOHMolina-4,678
HMO -2,387 SNP -2,291
451 counties · grew in 162 · shrank in 221 · entered 14 · left 9 · top-10 counties = 50% of gains
multi-state footprint · contracting · shedding HMO · SNP-led (66%)
CLOVClover Health+1,597
HMO +152 PPO +1,445
169 counties · grew in 66 · shrank in 81 · entered 1 · left 2 · top-10 counties = 78% of gains
concentrated footprint · growing above market · adding PPO · PPO-led (98%)

Product mix · April 2026
Movement since February 2026
Counties gained most
    Counties lost most
      Select a row in the board or a card above.

      Contested counties

      The counties with the most genuine carrier movement between February 2026 and April 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.

      CountyMA livesNetChurn Biggest gainBiggest loss
      Los Angeles, CA967,679+3,36917,147SCAN Health Plan +3,231Molina -2,063
      Miami-Dade, FL392,276+2,9357,785Centene +1,501Elevance -992
      Honolulu, HI113,772+1036,809Devoted Health +1,666Humana -3,340
      Orange, CA335,725+1,5866,526SCAN Health Plan +1,790UnitedHealth -758
      Queens, NY253,893+1,4416,157Visiting Nurse Service of New York +1,764UnitedHealth -1,899
      Cook, IL396,197+2,8135,707Humana +2,738HCSC -991
      Bexar, TX199,975+685,142Humana +1,558UnitedHealth -2,091
      Harris, TX404,460+1,5304,756Devoted Health +1,102UnitedHealth -940
      San Diego, CA328,773+9094,369Astiva Health Holdings Incorporated +987Molina -451
      Riverside, CA283,629+1,4194,233SCAN Health Plan +664UnitedHealth -518
      Removed before ranking — 56,353 lives that moved on paper. A parent organisation changing hands looks exactly like a carrier winning a county. The gate separates them mechanically: inside one county, a gain and a loss between two organisations that offset within 6%, above 400 lives, and where the same pair recurs in a second county or exceeds 2% of the county. 3 events matched this pair of files.Every county figure on this page — the cards, the drill-down and the table above — is computed with these counties out.

      Claims check

      3 of the standing claims resolve on these counts. Each gauge shows how far the claim sits from the point that would overturn it. The Long View ↗
      MarginC1▲ Near threshold

      Margin discipline is structural and permanent, not a cycle to wait out.

      Overturned if the carriers who announced contraction grow at or above market, through two consecutive annual enrolment periods.

      Margin to overturn0–4 pts vs market
      OVER-TURNEDELV 3.59UNH 3.14CVS 0.17SAFER →
      Enrolment periods against0 of 2
      Market ShareC5 · H3● Holding

      Penetration keeps rising, and it is the insurgents who capture the growth.

      Overturned if the insurgent cohort — Devoted, SCAN, Alignment, Clover — grows below market for two cycles.

      Margin to overturnpts vs market
      OVER-TURNEDcohort +62.3SAFER →
      Cycles against0 of 2
      MarginC1 · sub◆ Armed

      Humana's announced exit of 600,000 members takes effect in plan year 2027.

      Measured as Humana's January 2027 enrolment against its January 2026 baseline. Nothing about the exit is observable until the plan year turns.

      Humana enrolmentlives
      EXITDONEbaseline 6.83Mnow 7.17M600,000 BELOW BASELINE
      First readingFeb 2027

      C2 C3 C4 C6 — Risk adjustment, star ratings, prior authorisation, distribution consolidation. Not scored here: These resolve in rulings, rule-makings, enforcement notices and earnings language. No enrolment count moves them either way, and a number placed against them would be decoration.

      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. Where a standing claim in The Long View can be settled by a count, it is scored above; where it cannot, it is left alone rather than decorated with a number.

      Provenance

      • Levels and trend — CMS Monthly Enrollment by Plan, 17 files, January 2025 → May 2026.
      • Product and county — CMS CPSC Contract/Plan/State/County, February 2026 and April 2026.
      • Suppression — CPSC masks any cell of ten or fewer as *. That is 406,505 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 claim test crosses; a carrier moves more than 2% month on month; an offsetting county pair suggests a reassignment; the file is five days late.
      Built 14 August 2026 from the CMS May 2026 enrolment files. Lede written from a locked fact block and checked figure by figure against it; every other figure on this page is computed.