Guides

Plain explanations of the decisions that actually cost you money, with the arithmetic shown and every figure traced to the agency that published it. Each one ends at the tool that does the sums for your situation.

Choosing a plan

HDHP vs PPO: which one actually costs you less: The plan with the frightening deductible usually wins, and there is a specific point where it stops winning. How to find yours, what HMO and EPO change, and the three figures that move the answer.
What your deductible actually costs you: A deductible is not what you pay, it is where the plan starts helping. The order the money moves in, a worked bad year, and the difference between a copay and coinsurance that makes two identical-looking plans behave nothing alike.

Accounts and contributions

The HSA rules people get wrong: What changes at 65 and what does not, why Medicare and not your birthday is what stops contributions, the receipt rule almost nobody uses, and the 2027 limits.

When coverage ends

Losing your coverage: COBRA, the marketplace, and the clocks: Four deadlines that do not start where people think, the retroactive election that gives you a hundred days to decide, and the one move that locks you out of the marketplace until next year.

How these are written

Every figure comes from the agency that set it: an IRS Revenue Procedure, the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations. Where a number for next year has not been published yet, we say so and show the current one rather than repeating somebody's projection. Where the law is genuinely unsettled, as the 2027 enrollment dates are right now, we say that too.

These are educational. They are not financial, tax, insurance or legal advice, and your own plan documents govern your own coverage.