The choice
Supplement or Advantage — which one fits you?
Both of them cover the 20% Medicare leaves. They just ask you to pay in different ways, at different times. Four things decide which way suits you.
There is no right answer here. Two people the same age can choose differently and both be right.
Don't know a word? Press any purple word to see what it means. They're all listed at the bottom of the page.
Meet Dale and Eileen
A short story. It stops before the ending.
Read the script
The one picture to remember
Two ends of one line, not two different worlds.
You're going to pay for your coverage one way or the other. Either more each month and you're covered when you use it, or less each month and more out of pocket if something major happens.
How a licensed support agent puts it on a callWhat actually decides it
Four things. Open “Going deeper” only if you want the detail.
How much you use your coverage now
Two visits a year is a different question from most months. The more often you need care, the more often a Supplement's monthly cost is doing something for you — and the more often an Advantage plan's copays turn up.
Going deeper
This is about how much you use it, not about your health. Someone who barely uses their coverage can still have a bad year, which is what the yearly limit and the Supplement are both there for.
What a bad year has cost you before
People who have been hit once with a bill they did not see coming rarely want to risk it a second time. If you have paid thousands out of your own pocket before, that memory usually decides this faster than any number does.
Peace of mind, or carrying some risk
One route means paying more every month and almost nothing at the time you need care. The other means paying little every month and more when something major happens — with a limit on how far that can go in one year.
Neither of those is the careful choice and neither is the reckless one. They are two different ways of handling the same risk.
What you can comfortably pay every month
A Supplement's monthly cost has to fit your budget every month, including the quiet years when nothing happens. That is a real limit for some people, and it is worth being honest about it early.
Going deeper
What a Supplement costs depends on your age and your ZIP code, so the only number that means anything is your own. It is worth getting that number before ruling the route out.
Try it
Four questions. No score, no right answer, and nothing you tap is saved.
What matters to you?
Tap an answer and the summary underneath fills in with what each route does about it.
Answer one above and it appears here.
This does not tell you which one to buy, and it is not advice. It lays out what each route does about the things you said matter.
So where does that leave you?
Nothing is saved and nothing is final — this just takes you to the right prices.
How Dale and Eileen's story ends
Same questions, different answers.
Read the script
Chose an Advantage plan
A low monthly cost, copays when he goes, and a limit on what one bad year can cost him.
Chose a Supplement
More every month, and — depending on the plan — most or all of her share paid when she needs care.
Words on this page
- Copay
- A flat amount you hand over at the visit. Twenty dollars to see your doctor, for example.
- Medicare Advantage
- A private plan you can choose instead. It bundles coverage and has a yearly out-of-pocket limit.
- Medicare Supplement
- An add-on plan that pays some or all of what Original Medicare leaves you to pay. Also called Medigap.