What would each Medicare option have cost you?
There are three ways to carry Medicare: Original Medicare alone, Original Medicare plus a Medigap supplement, or a Medicare Advantage plan. Which one is cheapest depends entirely on the care you actually use — so this page takes your real costs and runs the same care through each option's rules: premiums in, bills out, totals compared.
Your information never leaves this page. The math — including reading an uploaded file — happens inside your own browser. Nothing you type or upload is sent to us or to anyone else. Close the page and it's gone.
The comparison
Tick at least one year above (and put something in its boxes) to see the comparison.
| Option | Part B premiums | Plan premiums | You'd still have paid | Total | vs. Original Medicare alone |
|---|
The bottom line
The other side of the coin: your worst possible year
The table above looks backward — it scores the years you actually had. Insurance is bought for the year you haven't had yet. This table shows the most each option could cost you in a single bad year (a stroke, a long hospital stay, months of treatment), using next year's premiums and limits:
| Option | Premiums (1 yr) | Worst-case medical bills | Worst year, all in |
|---|
"No limit" is the honest entry for Original Medicare alone: Part B's 20% share has no annual cap. That open end — not the small bills in ordinary years — is what a supplement or an Advantage plan's out-of-pocket maximum is for. The Medicare Advantage worst case assumes in-network care; out-of-network limits are higher.
Coming soon: your personalized PDF report — this comparison rebuilt over your own claims, written out in plain English, a keep-forever document you can share with family. Email yourself the summary above and we'll tell you the moment it's ready.
How to read this honestly
- A cheap past doesn't promise a cheap future. If your years were healthy, every supplement will look like wasted premium — that's the arithmetic working, not a trick. The worst-possible-year table is the other half of the decision.
- For Medigap, the letter is the coverage decision; the company is only the price. Every company's Plan N pays identical benefits. Pick the letter first, then the lowest reliable premium — and ask about the company's rate-increase history, not just year one. Already have Medigap? How switching works →
- Buying Medigap later is not guaranteed. Your one guaranteed window is the six months after your Part B starts. After that, in most states, companies can ask health questions and say no. The health-questions door, explained →
- Medicare Advantage trades a cap for managed care. Low or zero premiums and an out-of-pocket maximum, in exchange for networks, prior authorization, and benefits that can change every January — and leaving it for Medigap later usually means passing those health questions. The full picture →
- Plans A, B, D and M exist but are rarely sold. None covers the Part B deductible, and they're often priced near Plan G while covering less. Plan C, like Plan F, is only available if your Medicare began before 2020.
Where the numbers come from
- Medigap benefit rules: Medicare's own standardized benefit chart (medicare.gov: how to compare Medigap policies).
- Deductibles, premiums and limits by year: CMS announcements — Part B deductible and standard premium for 2023–2026, Part A hospital deductible, the high-deductible plan amount, and the Plan K / Plan L out-of-pocket limits.
- Medigap premium ballparks: published rate surveys, rounded. They exist only so the page works before you have quotes.
- Medicare Advantage plans: the plan picker is built from CMS's own public files — the annual Landscape file (every plan by county, with premiums, out-of-pocket maximums and star ratings) and the Plan Benefit Package data (the approved copays) — refreshed when CMS publishes new quarters. Special-needs plans (for people on Medicaid or with specific conditions) are not listed. Drug costs are never modeled. The official tool is medicare.gov/plan-compare.
This page is arithmetic on published rules, not medical, billing, insurance, or financial advice, and not a recommendation to buy, keep, or drop any plan. We are not an insurance agent and sell no plans. Coverage decisions are made by Medicare and its plans when claims are processed. For free one-on-one help choosing coverage, call your State Health Insurance Assistance Program.
Want a person to do this with your real records? The claims review for families ($349, flat) reads your actual Medicare statements line by line, explains what each claim means and what was owed and why, and builds this comparison for you — including running your care through the specific Medicare Advantage plans offered in your county, which no self-serve tool can do honestly.
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