Every spring, CMS publishes a document almost nobody outside a health-insurance actuarial department reads: the Medicare Advantage rate notice. It sets the per-member payment insurers get for every senior enrolled in a private Medicare plan, and it recalibrates the risk-adjustment model that decides how much extra insurers get paid for "sicker" patients. For CY2027, CMS finalized a 2.48% base rate increase — roughly $13 billion in new payments to MA plans — and, critically, chose to keep using the older 2024 risk-adjustment model rather than the tighter recalibration it had floated. On top of that, CMS runs a quality bonus program that pays roughly $13 billion a year in "star rating" bonuses to plans that hit 4 stars or higher. That single regulatory lever — not admissions, not procedure volume — is what actually moves earnings at the biggest Medicare Advantage franchises.
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