What will a year actually cost me?

The whole point of this tool is that a premium comparison is not a cost comparison. A plan with a $0 premium and $5,500 of exposure is not automatically cheaper than one with a $150 premium and almost none. Which wins depends on the year you actually have.

The Medicare Advantage column

• The standard Part B premium — $202.90 a month, unavoidable
• The plan's own premium, if it has one
• Typical copays for each visit type you entered
• An inpatient copay estimate per admission
• Your drug costs, capped at the 2026 Part D limit of $2,100
• The whole medical side capped at the plan's out-of-pocket maximum

The Supplement + Part D column

• The standard Part B premium — the same $202.90 a month
• Your Medigap premium
• Your Part D plan premium
• The 2026 Part B deductible of $283, which Plan G leaves to you
• Your drug costs, capped at the same $2,100 limit
• Essentially nothing else — that is what the supplement premium is buying. Visits, imaging and hospital stays are covered after the deductible.

Where this estimate is weakest

Three places, and they are worth naming rather than hiding:

• Copay assumptions. Advantage plan copays vary widely. The defaults here are middle-of-the-road for this area, not any particular plan.
• Drug costs. Entering a monthly figure assumes it stays flat, which real formularies do not. Two plans with the same premium can differ by hundreds a year on the same medication list.
• Supplement premiums rise with age. A Plan G quote at 65 is not what you will pay at 78. The gap between the two columns typically narrows over time — which is an argument for looking at more than one year.

None of that makes the comparison useless. It makes it a starting point — the real version uses actual plans in your actual ZIP with your actual prescriptions.