Medicare Supplement Plan F 2027: Exactly What It Covers and Who Can Still Buy It

Reviewed by Russell Noga, Licensed Medicare Insurance Broker (all 50 states) — Last updated November 10, 2026

Plan F sits at the top of the federal Medigap chart. Of the ten standardized plan letters, it’s the only one still in force that checks every benefit box, which is why millions of people bought it before Congress closed it to new enrollees.

This page looks at Plan F’s coverage line by line, using the Medicare cost-sharing amounts it absorbs, and then at the eligibility rule in detail, including the cases most summaries get wrong. CMS hadn’t published 2027 Part A and Part B amounts when this page went live on November 10, 2026, so the dollar figures below are the 2026 amounts and are labeled that way.

Every Plan F policy sold in 47 states carries the same nine benefits, set by federal law, whichever company issues it. The table pairs each benefit with what you’d owe under Original Medicare alone, using CMS’s 2026 figures.

Two rows deserve a note. The Part A deductible applies per benefit period, not per year, so two separate hospital stays can mean two deductibles, and Plan F pays both. Foreign travel coverage is the one benefit that isn’t 100%: after a $250 yearly deductible, Plan F pays 80% of emergency care in the first 60 days of a trip, up to a $50,000 lifetime limit. Our page on Medicare Supplement foreign travel coverage walks through how claims abroad work.

Small doctor visits make Plan F look like a convenience. A long hospital stay shows what it’s actually insuring. Take one illustrative stretch of care at 2026 amounts: a 70-day hospital stay, then 30 days in a skilled nursing facility, plus $10,000 in Medicare-approved doctor bills during the year.

The ceiling is far higher than that example. Medicare coinsurance for skilled nursing days 21 through 100 alone can reach $17,360 in a benefit period, which is why the first image above ranks it ahead of the deductibles.

The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) bars insurers from selling a Medigap plan that pays the Part B deductible to anyone “newly eligible” for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020. Plans C and F, including High-Deductible F, are the plans that pay it.

In plain terms, the cutoff follows your first Medicare eligibility, whether it came from age, disability or end-stage renal disease. For people reaching 65, NAIC guidance quoting CMS says you count as newly eligible only if you both turned 65 on or after January 1, 2020 and first became eligible for Medicare on or after that date. Someone who already had Medicare through disability in 2019 fails the second half, so a 65th birthday in a later year doesn’t close Plan F to them. Someone under 65 who first qualifies through disability in 2020 or later is newly eligible from day one.

Eligibility here means the point at which you could have had Medicare, not the date you signed up. The full list of general Medigap requirements is on our Medicare Supplement eligibility page.

All three plans share the Part A deductible, hospital and skilled nursing coinsurance, Part B coinsurance, blood, hospice and 80% foreign travel benefits. They split on just two lines:

In practice, the gap between F and G is the Part B deductible, $283 in 2026, while the gap between F and C only matters if you see doctors who don’t accept Medicare assignment. Whether the extra benefit is worth its premium is a pricing question, covered on our Medicare Supplement Plan F cost page. Full details on the open alternative are in Medicare Supplement Plan G.

Yes, if you meet the eligibility test and a company in your state still files Plan F. Moving a Plan F policy from one insurer to another is a new purchase, so the usual Medigap rules apply:

State-by-state switching windows are mapped in Medicare Supplement guaranteed issue rights by state.

Nothing about the coverage changes. Medigap policies are guaranteed renewable, so an insurer can’t cancel your Plan F because it’s no longer sold to new enrollees; it can end coverage only for unpaid premiums or misrepresentation on the application.

The open question is price. Since 2020 no new 65-year-olds have joined Plan F, which makes it what insurance analysts call a closed block. Over time, a closed block tends to get older and file more claims, and many observers expect larger rate increases on such blocks. How fast that happens varies by company and state, and nothing in federal law caps it, so your yearly renewal notice is the best evidence.

Plan F only fills gaps in services Original Medicare approves. It doesn’t add new kinds of benefits, so these stay outside it:

Massachusetts, Minnesota and Wisconsin standardize Medigap their own way, so residents there won’t see a plan called Plan F; ask for the state’s comparable plan. Those who want a lower-premium version of F with a yearly deductible can read about High-Deductible Plan F. Every other plan letter is compared in our guide to Medicare Supplement plans.

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