Three steps, with what happens underneath each one. If you only read one section, make it the last: the list of what this does not model is where the real limits are.
1Step 1. Type in the plans
The 2 to 4 health plans you’re choosing between: monthly premium, deductible, coinsurance, out-of-pocket max. Nothing to upload in the beta, and no account to link. On an employer plan they are the figures on the first page of each plan summary.
What happens underneath
A few yes/no questions per plan too: does it use copays, is there a separate deductible, does your employer put money into an HSA or HRA. “Not sure” is a real answer, and it changes what Beeshur will claim.
2Step 2. See every plan priced three ways
Each plan is run through the same quiet year, normal year and rough year, so the columns are comparable. Each figure is the annual premium plus your modeled share of care, capped at that plan’s out-of-pocket max.
What happens underneath
You pick roughly how much care to assume, from low to a major event. That level carries three figures, and those are the quiet, normal and rough year. Every plan is run against the same three, so the columns are genuinely comparable.
Cheapest modeled
Toss-up
Withheld
3Step 3. Get one of three answers
The cheapest modeled plan, a toss-up with the real tradeoff named, or “we can’t call it”. Then you enroll wherever you were always going to enroll. Beeshur is not in that part.
What happens underneath
The arithmetic is deterministic: same numbers in, same answer out. The result page prints the figures it ran on, so you can check it.
Which numbers to enter.
Beeshur does not work out subsidies. On a marketplace plan, enter the premium you actually pay, and the deductible and out-of-pocket max shown on your own plan. If you get cost-sharing reductions, those are lower than the published ones. Enter the published ones instead and the figures Beeshur shows you will be off.
Four levels of care, three kinds of year. These are two different choices, and they multiply rather than compete. You pick roughly how much care to assume, from low to a major event. That level then carries three figures, and those are the quiet, normal and rough year every plan is priced against. Change the level and all three columns move together, so the plans stay comparable.
Where the money goes
Every figure comes apart.
A total you can’t take apart is just another number to trust. Here is one cell of the comparison, in the order the arithmetic runs: plain, deterministic code, with no model involved.
Plan A in a normal year: $6,220Synthetic example
Annual premium$310 a month, whether you use any care or not
$3,720
The deductiblewhat you pay for most care before the plan starts sharing the cost. Many plans cover preventive care before you reach it.
$1,500
Coinsuranceyour 20% share of the $5,000 of care after that
$1,000
Total for the year
$6,220
And the ceiling holds. In a rough year the same plan’s share of care works out to $10,800, but its out-of-pocket max is $6,000, so Beeshur counts $6,000, not $10,800. That cap is what separates the two numbers, and it is why the rough year is $9,720 rather than $14,520.
In a rough year, the number to look at is the cap: $6,000.Clem, from Beeshur. Here for the fine print.
What each answer means.
The comparison is decided on the normal year. The quiet and rough columns show what the same plans do either side of it, and they are the reason the answer is worth having, but the 5% band that produces the result is measured on the middle one. Every comparison ends in exactly one of these. Two of the three decline to name a winner, and that is the design, not a shortfall. Every figure in these cards is invented, not anyone’s real offer sheet, and each card says which year it is priced for. Two plans within 5% of each other in that year is a toss-up, and Beeshur names neither.
Normal yearSynthetic example
Plan E$5,100
Plan F$6,740
Plan E by $1,640
Cheapest modeled
One plan is clearly cheapest
Named, with the margin. Here Plan E is $1,640 below Plan F in a normal year. These two are their own invented pair. Beeshur only names a plan when it stays cheapest across every unknown it had to work around.
Normal yearSynthetic example
Plan A$6,220
Plan C$6,320
Plan B$6,640
$100 apart
Close, no winner
It’s a toss-up
Two plans within 5% of each other in the year that decides. Here that is Plan A and Plan C, $100 apart. The tradeoff gets named; the call stays yours.
Plan D, as enteredSynthetic example
One family pot$8,000
Each person$2,000
No total
Withheld
We can’t call it
Something Beeshur could only bound, like how a family’s care splits across people, could change which plan is cheapest. You get the figures you entered, no total, no ranking, and the name of the unknown doing it.
A worked example shows three invented plans priced across all three kinds of year, and the one result that comparison returns.
What this does not model.
Printed here rather than in a footnote, because any one of these can be larger than the difference between two plans. Beside each one: what Beeshur does about it, which is not always the same as withholding.
How a family’s care splits across people
Beeshur asks for both the family and the per-person deductible and out-of-pocket max, and prices the year at both ends. It does not model who in the family gets sick, so where those two ends disagree about the cheapest plan, the result is withheld instead of picked.
Marketplace subsidies
There is no premium-tax-credit, cost-sharing-reduction or income logic in Beeshur at all. It prices exactly the four figures you type. On a marketplace plan that means entering the premium you actually pay, and the deductible and out-of-pocket max from your own plan rather than the published ones. If you get cost-sharing reductions, yours are lower.
The other 6 things Beeshur does not model
Copay amounts
We ask whether a plan uses copays, not what they are. If it does, or you are not sure, we price it from “copays cost you almost nothing” to “you pay the full cost of every visit”, and withhold only if that span changes which plan is cheapest.
The size of a separate service deductible
Same treatment as copays: we ask whether a plan has one, bound it at both ends, and withhold only if the two ends disagree. Prescriptions are one place this turns up.
Whether employer money is an HSA or an HRA
The yearly amount is modeled. You enter it, and it comes off that plan’s total. What we cannot model is the difference between money that lands in an account you keep and money that only reimburses care you actually have. Where that difference would change the answer, it is withheld.
Out-of-network care
Every figure is in-network. Out-of-network costs are not counted toward the out-of-pocket max here, and on many plans they are not counted toward yours either.
Per-paycheck timing
Premiums have to go in as monthly amounts. If they are per-paycheck or yearly, Beeshur says so rather than guessing the conversion. When the money leaves your pay, and in how many slices, is not part of the comparison either.
Your actual usage
You pick one of four levels of care, and everything is priced at that level, doubled for family coverage. They are standard amounts, the same for everyone on the same coverage tier who picks that level. Nothing here predicts your year, and we will not pretend to.
Modeled scenario comparison. Not financial, insurance, tax, or medical advice. Beeshur works from the numbers you enter; always check your plan documents and your insurer before you enroll.