Georgia’s State Health Benefit Plan lists a $0 deductible on its Standard and Premium Medicare Advantage options for 2027, and retirees have until 11:59 p.m. Eastern on November 6 to change their coverage. The plan’s 2027 retiree guide says the Retiree Open Change Period begins Monday, October 19, at 12:00 a.m. Eastern. The window is 19 days long, and the deductible is only one piece of what a retiree ends up paying.
Four plans, one deductible figure
The guide lists four Medicare Advantage PPO plans: Standard and Premium from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and Standard and Premium from UnitedHealthcare. The benefits table shows “Deductibles $0 $0” for both levels. The out-of-pocket maximum differs: $3,500 per member on Standard and $2,500 per member on Premium, a $1,000 gap that is the main benefit difference between the two levels.
The guide also says there is “no difference in your co-pay/co-insurance levels” between contracted providers and non-contracted providers that accept Medicare. For a retiree with doctors in more than one network, that line matters as much as the deductible.
What the commercial options charge before coverage starts
The same guide carries deductibles for the plans that are not Medicare Advantage. The Anthem HRA Gold plan has a $1,500 in-network deductible and a $3,000 out-of-network deductible for a single member. Anthem HRA Bronze with family coverage has a $5,000 in-network deductible. The UnitedHealthcare high-deductible plan lists $3,500 in-network and $7,000 out-of-network for a single member.
The guide is blunt about the cost of staying out of the Medicare Advantage group. A member who is 65 or older and does not enroll in an SHBP Medicare Advantage PPO option “will pay the unsubsidized cost of coverage, which is substantially higher.”
That sets up the question many Georgia retirees will have to answer by November 6: which option costs less once the deductible is counted? For a retiree on Medicare, the $0 deductible and the $2,500 or $3,500 out-of-pocket maximum define the most the plan can ask for in covered care, while a commercial option adds a deductible on top of an unsubsidized premium. The monthly premium is the number that still has to be looked up, because the guide does not print a single retiree rate.
Four Medicare Advantage plans share a $0 deductible, so the gap between them comes down to a $1,000 difference in the out-of-pocket maximum and whatever the monthly premium turns out to be before November 6. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit carries a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors, which is where a $1,000 difference in the out-of-pocket maximum actually shows up.
Line up the Georgia retiree options in the Decision Kit’s cost calculator →
Why the premium is not a single number
SHBP says on its retiree rates page that it has two rate structures for retirees, the Annuitant Basic Subsidy and the Years of Service Subsidy. The rates themselves are published as spreadsheet rate calculators on the plan’s years of service subsidy page, including a 2027 Medicare Advantage retiree rate calculator, and that page notes that an additional 2 percent administration fee is added to members who are billed by SHBP directly.
The guide’s years-of-service policy section states that members with less than 10 years of service receive no subsidy. A retiree with a short service record and a retiree with a long one can therefore face very different bills for the same plan, which is why no single monthly dollar figure appears here.
SHBP’s home page also links both the 2027 active member and the 2027 retiree decision guides, and it says the 2027 weight-loss-medication coverage requirements will be outlined in open enrollment materials. Anyone comparing options is working from the retiree guide, not the active-member one.
The change window in dates
The Retiree Open Change Period starts October 19 and ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on November 6, 2026, according to the guide. That is the period for changing coverage for 2027.
Open enrollment for Medicare itself, which governs plans a retiree buys outside SHBP, runs a different calendar: October 15 to December 7. The two windows overlap, but SHBP’s closes a month earlier.
Pricing the retiree options before November 6
The plan’s own site, shbp.georgia.gov, links the 2027 retiree decision guide and the rate calculators. The free first step is opening the Medicare Advantage retiree rate calculator, entering the retiree’s years of service, and writing down the monthly premium for Standard and Premium at each carrier.
Next to those premiums, list the out-of-pocket maximum for each level, $3,500 for Standard and $2,500 for Premium, and multiply the monthly premium by twelve. A retiree who expects heavy use of care is comparing the premium gap against that $1,000 difference in the maximum. Then confirm that each doctor and hospital in regular use is in the Anthem or UnitedHealthcare network, since the guide says co-pay levels are the same for non-contracted providers that accept Medicare.
The guide’s own numbers set the frame: a $0 deductible on all four Medicare Advantage plans, out-of-pocket maximums of $2,500 and $3,500, and a change window that closes at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on November 6.
A November 6 cutoff and no single premium to compare
A retiree who picks between Standard and Premium on the deductible alone is comparing two identical $0 figures and can miss the $1,000 gap in the out-of-pocket maximum, or a doctor outside the network. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit puts the Open Enrollment calendar beside a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors, so each option gets a written total before the window closes.
Price each option on cost, drugs and doctors with the Decision Kit →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
