Well Sort of...
I have drilled down hard in comparing these two plans and (IMHO) think I can reasonably compare the pros and cons of each, at least as far as typical costs. The reason I say reasonably, as opposed to certain, is that some medical services or meds will work out way better for one plan or another.
Up front costs. This is fairly straight forward, and I'm only going to show the family plan (Purple pilot plus) vs Buy Up with a family. I guess the vast majority of Fedex pilots fall into this group and the comparisons with spouse only, kids only or pilot only, is probably close. Since I fall into family, that was all I'm interested in, hence my comparison.
Pay check withdraw; Purple $355.51 vs Buy Up 396.43. To save you the trouble, thats Purple ahead by $491.04 over 12 months.
To further sweeten the deal; Purple puts $4600 (you and spouse doing the health eval and meeting other requirements). That $4600 works out to $383.33 per month. Note thats slightly more than the monthly cost of Purple. So if you used NO health care in 2017, no office, no pharma, nothing; you would make $27.82 per month or $333.84 from Fedex for not using health care. It actually would be more because the money would grow in an investment account at 4% tax free, but you get the idea.
Most of us are not going to not use any health care, so which one is more cost effective vs (or to put it better, cost less) the other?? Good question, longer explanation.
The idea behind the CDHP concept is the buyer (you) will attempt to reduce the cost of services and meds because you will directly benefit from the savings if you can save some of the company love ($4600) that is set aside on your behalf for not using Buy Up. Part of the sales pitch, and the one I see with the biggest unknown, is the promise of the preventive care services excluded from consideration of your health care costs. This promise, I believe is not just for the CDHP Purple (or Orange), but also for the Buy Up. I have carefully read the documents for what qualifies for "preventive care" and all the small print surrounding it. I would suggest you also read the details closely. Knowing our dealing with Fedex in matters of law (contract) and dealing with the insurance companies in general; I see a huge opportunity to not provide the intent of preventive care, as outlined and mandated by the ACA and believe that Fedex and Anthem will deny large amounts of justifiable preventive claims and kick them back to normal claims (read: draw down your $4600 on Purple or pay co pay/deductible on the Buy Up).
So assuming the worst, and you don't get to claim certain preventative services or meds as preventative, and or you do have medical and pharma expenses that are truly from illness or accident. Here is how my math comes out, feel free to contradict and add other plausible conditions or outcomes. Starting with Purple, you start with $4600 and you also should consider the saving from not using Buy Up ($491.04 per year, the deference in monthly pay check deduction). That equals $5091.04. The annual deductible for Purple plus (family, spouse, or just pilot and kids) is $5000. Yes there is a pilot only limit, I'm ignoring it because it further muddies the water and I think the majority of families are not going to have only the pilot making claims and reaching the pilot only limit while the family doesn't. So at $91 before breakeven with (fixed) costs vs the Buy up plan, you max out the annual deductible. But the break even really isn't at $5091 because if you were on the Buy Up you would have had co pays and (depending of the tier of drug, % costs) pushing up your out of pocket expenses vs Purple. Now the math gets harder.
Co pays for Purple vs Co pays with Buy Up.
It really comes down to this, and an apples to apples comparison is, well.....complicated
To do this justice, you need to know what the company cost (the part they will pay for a service or a drug) vs co pays for the particular service rendered. Example, doctor visit, illness. if a specialist, under Buy Up, $40; straight forward, under Purple, 10% of the Fedex cost. If a specialist is paid more than $400, than co pay wins (Buy Up), otherwise you would spend less paying 10% (Purple) of Fedex costs. If you go to the hospital and get real surgery, I think Buy Up will win hands down. Pharma, not so sure. If you have a large pharma usage and it can't be claimed as preventive, you really need to look hard at the amount paid by Anthem vs your co pay, and compare the Purple way of figuring vs Buy Up.
The last part is the max out of pocket. Lower for Purple (at $8500) than Buy Up ($9750). I don't see how anyone reaches the buy Up limit, but than I haven't (thankfully) had that kind of major health event in our family. This final back stop is the "real" insurance provided by any health plan and for Purple is advertised as $3900 max out of pocket ($4600-$8500). For Buy Up, it could be worse, but only in comparison with Purple when you stay in network with Purple because the limits goes way up ($18,000) out of network with Purple but doesn't change with Buy Up.
Hope some find this useful. If not, trust your gut and remember, what ever you do, at the end of next year, if you spent more than you could have, and your spouse knows it, they will tell you (in hindsight) they knew you should have done the other.