Vlada · Research · 2026-10-13 · modeled
2.9 million UnitedHealth members are in 4-star contracts that cleared the line by less than 0.1
After UnitedHealth's Q3 2026 earnings, how close are its 4-star Medicare Advantage members to losing the 4-star line?
| UnitedHealth Group Medicare Advantage contracts, 2027 Star Ratings | points above 3.75 |
|---|---|
| H0609 UnitedHealthcare Benefits of Texas752,808 members, 4.5 to 4.0 | 0.02 |
| H8768 Care Improvement Plus South Central302,034 members | 0.02 |
| H2406 Care Improvement Plus South Central563,134 members | 0.04 |
| H4514 UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Texas149,632 members | 0.08 |
| H5253 UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin1,156,220 members | 0.09 |
CMS 2027 Overall Star Rating rebuilt before rounding (weighted mean of measure stars + reward factor + CAI, improvement hold-harmless), minus 3.75; members from CMS Monthly Enrollment by Contract, Sep 2026 · CMS 2027 Star Ratings Data Tables (Oct 8 2026) and 2027 Technical Notes; CMS 2026 Star Ratings (Oct 2025, restated July 22 2026); CMS Monthly Enrollment by Contract, Sep 2026; UnitedHealth Group Q3 2026 earnings release (8-K, Oct 13 2026, slide 4); Vlada Star Risk model (stars_risk_score_v2) · 5 rows
The posted figure
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- UnitedHealth's 69% uses its own enrollment basis; ours is CMS ratings times CMS September 2026 enrollment (67.9%). The post quotes theirs and does not dispute it.
- Scores before rounding are Vlada's rebuild of CMS's published method; an independent rebuild matched CMS's 2027 Overall for 507 of 508 rated contracts, including all 54 UnitedHealth contracts.
- H0609 kept 4.0 through CMS's improvement hold-harmless; with its two improvement measures counted it rounds to 3.5.
- The 56% is a model forecast (Star Risk, engine 2.0 with 2028 rules), validated on held-out years 2024-2027 for this event, not an observed outcome. It does not predict any single measure.
- Cut points for 2028 are not known; a measure on its cut point today can stay or move.
- Members are as of September 2026, before 2027 enrollment; drug-only plans are excluded (UnitedHealth's largest contract overall is the drug plan S5921).
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