Shopping for a stand-alone Medicare drug plan for 2027 starts higher in New York than in any other state. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services lists $37.30 a month as the lowest premium among the state’s stand-alone plans, against $5.30 in most states.
Two tools for a 2027 drug list: The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit holds a prescription-by-plan comparison and a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors.
Compare each drug plan by plan before Dec. 7 →
Nine stand-alone plans and one $37.30 floor
The figure comes from CMS’s 2027 state-by-state fact sheets, published Sept. 28. New York has 4,054,716 people enrolled in Medicare and nine stand-alone prescription drug plans on offer for 2027. The sheet’s wording is plain: $37.30 is the lowest monthly premium for a stand-alone Medicare prescription drug plan in the state. The same sheets show $5.30 as the lowest premium in Alabama, Arizona and Florida, and in most other states.
The gap is about sevenfold, since $37.30 divided by $5.30 is 7.04. Scope matters here: the number is a floor, the cheapest monthly premium on the shelf, and not an average of what New York enrollees will pay. It is also a 2027 plan-year offering, scheduled but not yet in effect.
A cushion that ends after 2026
CMS’s Sept. 28 announcement puts the New York number in context. The Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration, which held down stand-alone premiums, was narrowed in 2026 and will be discontinued in 2027. CMS projects the national average monthly premium for stand-alone drug plans to rise less than $1, from $35.09 in 2026 to $36 in 2027.
Set against that average, New York’s cheapest plan costs $1.30 more than the typical stand-alone plan nationwide, since $37.30 minus $36 is $1.30. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz framed the announcement around Medicare Advantage: “By slashing handouts to big insurance companies, CMS is keeping premiums stable while ensuring that 97% of Medicare beneficiaries have access to 10 or more MA plans.” The quote addresses Medicare Advantage rather than stand-alone drug plans, but it comes from the same release that describes the demonstration’s end.
The sources stop short of a before-and-after for New York itself. The fact sheet gives no figure for the state’s cheapest plan in 2026, so how far the floor has moved cannot be calculated from what CMS published.
What CMS says is better for New York members
The New York fact sheet also carries one reassuring line. It states that 100% of people with a stand-alone prescription drug plan in the state have access to a plan with a lower premium than what they paid in 2026. In other words, every current stand-alone member in the state has at least one 2027 option priced below the premium paid this year. The sheet does not say how many members are choosing among those options, or what a lower-priced plan covers.
Members who take drug coverage through Medicare Advantage face a different comparison. The same fact sheet counts 227 Medicare Advantage plans in New York for 2027, up from 218, and says the average monthly Medicare Advantage premium fell from $36.19 to $30.79. Those are averages across plans, not what any one enrollee pays, and the sheet does not separate out the drug coverage inside them.
The Oct. 15 to Dec. 7 window
Medicare’s Open Enrollment page sets the schedule: Open Enrollment runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, changes take effect Jan. 1, and the plan must receive the enrollment request by Dec. 7. A member who does nothing stays in the current plan on that plan’s 2027 terms. CMS says the Medicare Plan Finder is already available at Medicare.gov for comparing 2027 options, so the comparing can start before the window opens. The page also lists what can change in the window, including joining, dropping or switching a Medicare Advantage plan and moving between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage.
The cheapest premium says nothing about which drugs are covered
The $37.30 figure measures one thing, the monthly premium. The fact sheet does not name the plan that carries it, so it says nothing about which drugs that plan covers. The total cost of a year on any drug plan depends on the enrollee’s own drug list, the formulary tier each drug sits on in that plan, and whether the pharmacy the person uses is in the plan’s network. Two New Yorkers on the same plan can face different yearly costs for that reason, and a cheaper premium can sit beside a more expensive year.
That is why the comparison has to be built from the individual drug list rather than from a ranking. Medicare Plan Finder takes a person’s medications and pharmacies and returns plans priced against them, and the fact sheet’s statewide floor cannot stand in for that result.
Medicare Plan Finder and 1-800-MEDICARE are free. The phone line, 1-800-633-4227 (TTY 1-877-486-2048), is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week except some federal holidays, and Medicare’s contact page adds that State Health Insurance Assistance Programs provide free help with plan decisions. CMS’s Sept. 28 fact sheet is the source for the $37.30 and $5.30 figures.
Reading a premium ranking against a real prescription list
A state’s lowest premium ranks plans on a single number. The cost of a year on a plan also turns on which medications are covered, at which tier, and at which pharmacies, and none of that shows up in a premium ranking.
The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes a prescription-by-plan comparison and a cost calculator spreadsheet with a Drug Check tab, so each medication can be priced against each finalist plan.
Open The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit to price a drug list by plan →
AI helped draft this article, and its figures were checked against the CMS and Medicare.gov pages linked above.
