Poll: Six in Ten Medicare Enrollees Spend Less Than an Hour Picking a Plan, and Brokers Are the Top Outside Guide

As Medicare's annual open enrollment period opened October 15, 2026, a nationally representative poll published the same day found that most older adults make coverage decisions quickly and rarely change plans. The survey comes from the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation's National Poll on Healthy Aging, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, and draws on responses from Medicare enrollees aged 65 and older.

Sixty percent of respondents spent less than an hour reviewing their Medicare coverage options during open enrollment. Twenty-seven percent took no time to review options at all, while 33 percent reviewed them but spent less than one hour doing so. Eighty percent stayed with the same plan they held the prior year.

Despite minimal review time, 92 percent said they were somewhat or very confident in their Medicare coverage decisions.

Among those who did consult outside sources, 26 percent named an insurance broker as their most important information source. Twenty-five percent cited Medicare's own tools, such as the Plan Finder or the Medicare helpline. Twenty-one percent relied primarily on a health plan's website. Only 5 percent named a free local counselor through the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, known as SHIP, which provides no-cost, unbiased Medicare guidance in every state.

The findings arrive during an unusually turbulent enrollment season. For 2027, more than 3 million Medicare Advantage enrollees must find new plans after their carriers withdrew coverage, and the average number of available Medicare Advantage plans per county has fallen compared with 2026. Open enrollment runs through December 7, 2026.