Centene Corporation sued HHS and CMS on October 22, 2026, saying 17 unlawful measures distorted its 2027 Medicare Advantage Star Ratings and cost about $448 million. The case was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia and targets how the ratings affected more than three dozen Medicare Advantage contracts.
Centene says the loss reaches 35 subsidiaries and includes bonus payments and rebates tied to the ratings. The filing says two contracts would have cleared the three-star threshold without the disputed measures, while plans below three stars can draw a public warning on CMS's Medicare Plan Finder.
Clover Insurance Co. v. HHS
The lawsuit leans on a ruling from May 2026, when the same court decided Clover Insurance Co. v. HHS. In that case, the court found that 20 measures CMS used to score Clover's 2026 Star Ratings were unlawful and ordered CMS to redo the ratings without them.
Centene points to a comparison that it says strengthens its case. CMS voluntarily dropped those same measures from Clover's 2027 ratings when it published them on October 8, 2026, but Centene says CMS kept the same types of measures for every other health plan in the country, including Centene.
Medicare Plan Finder warnings
The filing says the disputed measures are not just a scoring dispute. Plans that score below three stars get flagged with a public warning on CMS's Medicare Plan Finder, and three consecutive years with that flag gives CMS the power to cancel the contract entirely.
That makes the fight over the 2027 Medicare Advantage Star Ratings more than a money dispute. Centene is asking the court to unwind a rating process it says affected dozens of contracts and to recognize the loss it places at about $448 million.
For Centene, the practical question now is whether the court will require CMS to redo the ratings the same way it did for Clover in May 2026. If the court agrees, the company could pursue restoration of the payments it says were lost under the disputed measures.
