Medicare Supplement Plan G vs. Plan N: Which Medigap Is Right for You?

If you have decided you want a Medicare Supplement (also called Medigap) instead of a Medicare Advantage plan, you are most of the way there. The last big question is usually this: Plan G or Plan N?

Short answer, with Fayette County numbers behind it. Plan N runs roughly $30 to $35 a month less than Plan G here, about $400 a year, and in exchange you take a copay of up to $20 at the doctor, up to $50 at the emergency room, and no protection against excess charges. At up to $20 a visit, it would take roughly twenty office visits in a year for those copays to equal the premium you saved. How many visits you actually have, and how much a predictable bill matters to you, is what separates the two.

Then comes the part almost nobody explains, and it is worth more money than the G-or-N decision itself: the same Plan G was quoted from about $160 to about $335 a month in Lexington on the same day. Identical coverage, set by federal law, at nearly double the price. Below is the plain-English breakdown of both plans, what they actually cost here, and how to tell one company from another when the policy is the same.

If you are still deciding between a Supplement and Advantage in the first place, start with Medicare Advantage vs. Medigap: The Real Difference. This article assumes you already lean toward a Supplement.

One thing that makes this easier

Medigap plans are standardized. That means a Plan G is a Plan G no matter which company sells it. The benefits are set by the government, so the only things that change from one insurer to the next are the monthly price and the company's service. You do not have to decode fine print. You pick the plan letter, then shop the price. That alone removes most of the stress.

What each plan covers

Plan G covers just about every gap Original Medicare leaves behind. The one and only thing it does not pay is the annual Part B deductible, which is $283 in 2026. You pay that once a year, and after that your covered costs are essentially zero.

Plan N covers the same big items as Plan G, with three differences that lower your premium: you pay small copays when you get care, you pay the Part B deductible just like Plan G, and Plan N does not cover something called Part B excess charges (more on that below).

Where Plan G and Plan N differ

So the real trade is simple. With Plan G you pay a bit more every month and almost never see a bill. With Plan N you pay less every month in exchange for small, predictable copays and two smaller gaps.

What is a "Part B excess charge"?

This sounds scary but it is straightforward. Most doctors accept what Medicare pays as full payment. A few do not, and those few are allowed to charge up to 15% more than the Medicare-approved amount. That extra is the excess charge. Plan G pays it for you. Plan N does not, so you would owe it. Many people never run into one, but it can happen, which is part of why Plan G costs a little more.

What each one means in practice

• With Plan G, you pay a higher premium every month, and after the Part B deductible you will rarely see a bill for covered care. Your yearly cost is close to fixed and you can budget it in advance.
• With Plan N, you pay a lower premium every month, plus a copay of up to $20 at the doctor and up to $50 at the emergency room if you are not admitted. Your yearly cost is lower if you use little care and rises with each visit.

Both plans cover the same hospital stays, skilled nursing, hospice, blood and foreign travel benefits, and both leave you the Part B deductible. The two differences are the copays and the excess charges described above. Which one costs you less over a year depends entirely on how much care you use.

What G and N actually cost in Fayette County

Here is what those two paragraphs look like in dollars. I ran quotes for a Lexington ZIP code, age 65, non-tobacco, for a September 2026 start date. Rounded to the nearest five dollars:

How to read this. These are rounded ranges from one quote run on 19 August 2026, not a price list and not an offer. Your own price depends on your ZIP code, age, tobacco use, household discounts, and when you apply. Rates quoted after health questions are excluded, because they are not what a healthy applicant is offered. Every carrier changes its rates on its own schedule, so see the note below before you treat any ranking as settled.

The number that matters most is the gap between the two columns: roughly $30 to $35 a month, right around $400 a year, and it held for both the men's and the women's quotes.

Same exact policy, nearly double the price

Look at that Plan G row again. The low end was about $160 and the top of the mainstream range was about $335. Those are the same policy. Plan G benefits are set in federal law, so the expensive one does not cover one dollar more than the cheap one. Nothing is upgraded. Nothing is better. It is the identical contract at nearly double the price.

That is the whole reason to shop, and it is also why the price alone should not decide it. Here is what I actually look at.

1. How the company prices by age

This is the single most under-explained thing in Medigap, and it decides what you pay at 80, not just at 65. There are three methods:

• Attained age. Your premium is based on your age right now, so it climbs every year as you get older, on top of any general rate increase. Nearly every company in my Fayette quote run prices this way.
• Issue age. Your premium is based on your age when you bought the policy and does not rise just because you had a birthday. It still rises with general increases. None of the companies in this run used it.
• Community rated. Everyone with that policy pays the same, whether they are 65 or 88. In my run, the AARP plans insured by UnitedHealthcare priced this way.

Why it matters: an attained-age policy usually looks cheapest on the day you turn 65 and gets less cheap every year after. A community-rated policy often looks expensive at 65 and comparatively better at 80. Comparing them on today's premium alone tells you almost nothing about what you will pay for the next twenty years. Ask which method a quote uses before you compare it to anything.

2. Time in the market, and rate increase history

In that same run, the companies ranged from one year in the Kentucky market to sixty. Both extremes were priced competitively, so this is not a case of new companies being cheap and old ones being expensive. What time in the market gives you is a track record: a company that has been raising rates on Kentucky policyholders for decades has a history you can look at, and a company in its first year does not.

The pattern worth knowing about is the one where a new entrant prices low to gather policyholders, then raises rates faster than the market once that block of business ages. It does not always happen. But a very low price from a company with no local history is a question to ask, not a bargain to grab. Ask your agent for the carrier's rate increase history in Kentucky, and if they cannot produce it, that tells you something too.

3. The financial strength rating

You are buying a promise to pay claims for the next twenty or thirty years, so the company's ability to keep that promise counts. AM Best ratings in my Fayette run went from A- to A++, all with a stable outlook. That is a healthy field. It is still worth checking, and it is free to look up.

4. The things that move the price after the headline number

• Household discounts. In this run they ran from about 6% to over 12%, and the rules differ by company. Some need a spouse on the same policy, some only need another adult living in the home. A discount that size can reorder the whole list.
• Policy fees. Several companies add a one-time or annual fee of $20 to $25 that does not show in the monthly premium.
• Medicare Select. Some of the lowest-priced options in my run were Medicare Select policies, which are Medigap plans with a hospital network attached. If you have read our Lexington hospital network table, you know why that matters here. A regular Medigap plan has no network at all. A Select version does. That is a real trade and it should never be buried in a price comparison.
• Health rating class. One company in my run quoted the same Plan G at about $160 and about $190 depending on whether you qualify as preferred or standard. Inside your Medigap open enrollment window this does not apply. Outside it, it does.

If you had that carrier at work, that is not a reason to keep it

I see this one constantly, and it costs people real money. Somebody spent fifteen or twenty years on an employer health plan from a big-name insurer, retires, and assumes the obvious move is to take that same company's Medicare plan. It feels loyal. It feels safe. It is neither.

Your employer plan and that company's Medicare Supplement are completely different products, often written by a different legal entity inside the same corporate family, priced by a different department, under different rules, with a different network or no network at all. Nothing carries over. Not your deductible, not your doctors being in-network, not your claims history, and not whatever goodwill you built up with them.

In my August run the spread between two large, familiar national brands on the identical Plan G was about $46 a month, which is roughly $550 a year, for a policy that covers exactly the same things. Picking on the strength of a logo you recognize from your old benefits packet is how people end up on the expensive side of that gap. The company name on your old insurance card tells you nothing about whether they are competitive on Medigap in Fayette County this year.

By all means keep them if they win on the merits. Plenty of times they do. Just make them earn it against the rest of the field first.

Two more things worth knowing

Plan F is closed to newcomers. You may hear about Plan F, which also covered the Part B deductible. If you became eligible for Medicare before January 1, 2020, you can still buy it. If you turned 65 or first qualified on or after that date, Plans F and C are not available to you. Among the plans you can still buy, Plan G is the one that leaves the fewest gaps, since the Part B deductible is all it does not pay.

There is a high-deductible Plan G. If you want the lowest possible premium and can handle more risk, a high-deductible version of Plan G has a much lower monthly cost but you pay the first $2,950 in 2026 yourself before it kicks in. It is a niche choice, but worth knowing it exists.

Common questions

This article is general information, not advice for your specific situation, and Medicare rules and figures can change. 2026 figures are from CMS and Medicare.gov. The premium ranges here are rounded, come from a single quote run on 19 August 2026, and are not an offer of coverage or a guarantee of any price. Premiums vary by insurer, age, gender, tobacco use, ZIP code, household discounts and the date you apply, and each company files its own rate changes on its own schedule during the year. Companies are named for factual comparison of a standardized product and no endorsement or ranking is intended. We are not appointed with every insurer that sells Medicare Supplement coverage in Kentucky, so compare more than one source before you decide. You can compare policies and prices yourself at Medicare.gov or through the Kentucky Department of Insurance. Tyler Insurance Group is not connected with or endorsed by the United States government or the federal Medicare program. We do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 6 organizations which offer 158 products in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-MEDICARE, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.