A 5-minute read on the single calculation most open enrollment emails are built to help you skip.
Open enrollment shows up the same way every year: an email, a two-week window, a portal that defaults to last year’s plan if nothing gets clicked. The part that gets attention is the premium, printed right next to the number already coming out of a paycheck. The part that gets skipped is the only number that actually decides which plan wins: total expected cost for the year, premium plus whatever gets spent against a deductible and an out-of-pocket max.
Two plans sitting side by side are really two bets on how much health care gets used this year. A high-premium, low-deductible plan is a bet on a moderate to heavy year: a few specialist visits, a prescription refilled monthly, maybe a procedure. A low-premium, high-deductible plan is a bet on a light year: a checkup, nothing else. Picking by premium alone answers a question nobody asked, which plan costs less if nothing happens.
The actual math takes about ten minutes with last year’s explanation of benefits and this year’s plan summary. Count visits and prescriptions from the past twelve months, run that total against each plan’s cost-sharing, then run it again against a worse year: one ER visit, one short hospital stay. Most plans flip which one wins depending on which scenario gets used, and that flip is the whole decision.
Open enrollment paperwork reads like a benefits form. Underneath it is a financial decision with a deadline and a default that quietly re-picks last year’s bet if the form never gets opened. The ten minutes of math is the only part of the process actually asking for a choice; everything else is the portal choosing for you.
P.S. Tomorrow: why rebalancing a portfolio and stretching before a run are the same ten-minute habit, and what skipping both quietly costs.
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