Wellcare Medicare Advantage Plans 2027: Coverage, Costs & Ratings

Reviewed by Russell Noga, Licensed Medicare Insurance Broker (all 50 states) — Last updated September 28, 2026

Wellcare is the Medicare brand of Centene, the sixth-largest Medicare Advantage carrier in the country. It sells in 32 states and more than 1,850 counties, and it competes almost entirely on price and on benefit cards rather than on network prestige.

Two things about Wellcare matter more than anything else going into 2027: it made the largest quality improvement of any carrier in the market, from a very low base, and it narrowed the grocery and utility allowances that brought a lot of its members in. Below is the full picture, and how to judge whether a Wellcare plan is the right one in your county when 2027 details publish on October 1, 2026.

While most national carriers spent the year cutting counties, Wellcare added 51 of them, across California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and North Carolina. That is the good news. The harder news is what happened to the extras.

This matters because the grocery allowance is what brought a lot of people to Wellcare in the first place. If it was the reason you enrolled, check whether you still qualify before you renew. If you no longer do, the plan you have may not be the plan you chose.

The benefit Wellcare leads with is the Spendables card: one preloaded card accepted at more than 66,000 retailers across its 32-state footprint. Depending on the plan, it can cover over-the-counter health items and out-of-pocket dental, vision and hearing costs. Wellcare has also merged its rewards programme into the same card, so points earned for annual wellness visits, flu shots and health screenings land in the same place.

Other benefits that run across the lineup: $0 or low copays for primary care on all plans, $0 routine physicals and preventive screenings, insulin capped at $35 or 25% of the negotiated price, $0 Part D vaccines, and prescription out-of-pocket costs capped for the plan year. Preferred pharmacies include Walgreens, CVS and select grocers.

This is the part to be straight about. Wellcare’s enrollment-weighted average star rating is 3.39 against an industry average near 3.98, and it is the lowest of the major carriers. The share of its members in 4-star-or-better plans is more than 18%.

The direction, though, is the best in the industry. That 18% was about 1% the year before. No other carrier moved that far, and Elevance was the only other one that moved up at all while Aetna and Humana slipped. A carrier climbing from a low base is a different proposition from one sliding down from a high one, and both facts belong in the same sentence.

If you are weighing Wellcare against the field on quality rather than price, our ranked comparison of the best Medicare Advantage plans 2027 scores every major carrier on ratings, stability and availability. In Minnesota and western Wisconsin the sharpest contrast is a regional one: HealthPartners Medicare Advantage plans 2027 carry some of the highest star ratings in the country in the same counties where Wellcare competes on price.