Bronze or Silver, and why CSRs decide it
Bronze has the lower premium. Silver has a feature Bronze does not. If your income falls under 250% of the poverty line, a cost-sharing reduction rebuilds a Silver plan into something better than Gold, at no extra premium. In our copy of the 2026 plan file, the median Silver deductible drops from $6,000 to $0.
The short version
Most people pick a plan by looking at the monthly premium. That is a reasonable instinct and it is often the wrong one.
Bronze plans are cheaper every month. Silver plans carry one thing Bronze cannot carry at any price: a cost-sharing reduction. Federal rules attach that benefit to Silver plans only (HealthCare.gov).
If you qualify and you buy Bronze anyway, you leave the benefit on the table. We wanted to know how big that gap actually is, so we measured it.
What a metal level actually means
A metal level is a statement about averages, not about your bill.
Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum describe actuarial value. That is the share of covered in-network costs the plan pays across a standard population. It is not the share it pays for you.
Two Silver plans with the same label can have very different deductibles. And the same Silver plan, sold to two different buyers, can behave completely differently. That last part is the whole point of this post.
What a cost-sharing reduction is
A cost-sharing reduction, or CSR, is a rebuild of a Silver plan's cost sharing at the same premium.
The federal rule sets three variations, keyed to household income as a share of the federal poverty level. A Silver plan must reach 94% actuarial value between 100% and 150% of poverty. It must reach 87% between 150% and 200%, and 73% between 200% and 250% (eCFR 45 CFR 156.420).
You do not apply for it separately. If you qualify and you enroll in a Silver plan through the Marketplace, the reduced design is built into the policy (HealthCare.gov).
The premium does not change. The American Academy of Actuaries puts it plainly: these subsidies are provided to eligible enrollees at no additional premium (Actuary.org).
The 2026 metal levels, measured
Here is what the 2026 individual market actually looks like in our copy of the CMS plan file. These are on-exchange standard variants only, so every row is comparable.
| Metal level | Plans | Median deductible | Median out-of-pocket max | Median age-40 premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platinum | 44 | $0 | $5,200 | $1,455 |
| Gold | 1,172 | $2,000 | $8,200 | $763 |
| Silver | 1,453 | $6,000 | $8,900 | $727 |
| Expanded Bronze | 1,156 | $7,500 | $10,000 | $557 |
| Bronze | 144 | $10,600 | $10,600 | $539 |
| Catastrophic | 75 | $10,600 | $10,600 | $431 |
Read that the way a shopper reads it. Bronze saves about $170 a month against Silver and costs $4,600 more in deductible. That is the trade everyone understands.
The premium column is the unsubsidised rate for a 40-year-old, before any advance premium tax credit. Nobody eligible for a credit pays it.
What CSRs do to the identical Silver plan
Now the part that is hard to see on a shopping screen.
CMS files each Silver plan several times. There is one record per cost-sharing variant, all sharing a single standard component. Same insurer, same network, same benefits, same premium. Only the cost sharing moves.
We isolated the 1,453 Silver standard components that appear at every tier and compared them against themselves.
| Silver variant | Median deductible | Median out-of-pocket max |
|---|---|---|
| Standard, on-exchange | $6,000 | $8,900 |
| 73% AV (200–250% FPL) | $3,000 | $7,500 |
| 87% AV (150–200% FPL) | $700 | $3,300 |
| 94% AV (100–150% FPL) | $0 | $1,750 |
The median deductible drop from standard Silver to the 94% variant is $6,000. The largest single drop we found on one plan was $9,900.
Of the 1,453 Silver plans, 1,385 have a lower deductible at 94% than at standard. And 1,110 of them have no deductible at all at 94%.
Compare that back to the metal table. A 94% Silver plan has a lower median deductible than Platinum's, and a much lower out-of-pocket cap. It costs Silver money.
The trap
The benefit is fused to the metal level, not to you.
If your income lands in the CSR range and you buy Bronze because the premium looked better, you get nothing from the table above. There is no partial credit and no retroactive fix at tax time.
CMS built a safety net for exactly this. Since plan year 2024, certain CSR-eligible enrollees who would have been auto-renewed into a Bronze plan are auto-renewed into a comparable Silver plan instead (CMS). That only catches people who do not choose actively. If you pick Bronze on purpose, nothing catches you.
When Bronze is still right
We are not arguing Silver always wins. Three cases where it does not:
Your income is above 250% of the poverty line. No CSR exists for you, and the Silver premium may carry a load that Bronze does not (KFF).
You want a health savings account. In our data, all 1,156 Expanded Bronze plans and all 144 Bronze plans are flagged HSA-eligible. Only 29 of 1,453 Silver plans are.
You are buying off-exchange. CSRs run through the Marketplace, so an off-exchange Silver plan does not carry one.
One thing we flagged in the source file
All 75 Catastrophic plan records in our load carry an HSA-eligible flag set to yes. That does not match how catastrophic coverage is normally described, and we have not been able to reconcile it.
We are reporting it rather than quietly dropping it. Treat the catastrophic row as unverified and check the plan's own summary of benefits before relying on it.
Where these numbers come from
Source file: CMS Health Insurance Exchange Public Use Files, plan year 2026 — Plan Attributes PUF, Rate PUF and Service Area PUF. Source URL: cms.gov/marketplace/resources/data/public-use-files Extracted and queried: 13 August 2026. Records behind this page: 20,354 plan variants across 4,044 standard components, 183 issuers and 30 states, plus 1,235,067 rate rows. Individual medical market only. Dental-only and small-group plans are excluded.
Three honesty notes. These are our computations over a public file, not a CMS publication. Medians across 30 states are not a quote for any one buyer in any one county. And the states here are the 30 that use the federal platform, so state-run exchanges are not represented.
Our other live data work is listed on the apps page, and the rest of the writing is on the blog.
Questions people ask
Do I have to do anything to get a cost-sharing reduction?
No. You do not apply separately. If your household income qualifies and you enroll in a Silver plan through the Marketplace, the reduced cost sharing is built in automatically (HealthCare.gov).
Does a cost-sharing reduction cost extra each month?
No. The premium is the same as the standard Silver plan. The American Academy of Actuaries describes these subsidies as provided to eligible enrollees at no additional premium.
Can I get a cost-sharing reduction on a Bronze or Gold plan?
No. The benefit exists only on Silver plans bought through the Marketplace. If you are eligible and you choose another metal level, you keep any premium tax credit but you lose the cost-sharing help entirely.
What income qualifies me?
Household income between 100% and 250% of the federal poverty level, in three bands. The federal rule sets 94% actuarial value for 100% to 150% of poverty, 87% for 150% to 200%, and 73% for 200% to 250%.
How much is the deductible difference really?
We compared 1,453 Silver plans in the 2026 file against themselves. The median deductible falls from $6,000 at standard Silver to $0 at the 94% variant. The largest single-plan drop we measured was $9,900.