You can still get a nationwide PPO in Arkansas, and an electrician working the plants and steel mills of Northeast Arkansas has an unusually simple marketplace in front of him. Here's how Jonesboro-area electricians are choosing.
Hi, I'm Sam. Health insurance is the only thing I sell, I'm based in Tampa, I hold an Arkansas license, and I work with clients by phone, even from a mill parking lot.
Say you're a licensed electrician in Jonesboro who spent years with an industrial contractor working the steel mills near Blytheville and the plants and processors scattered across Northeast Arkansas. Now you're running your own outfit: shutdown and maintenance work, motor and drive repairs, a commercial job in Jonesboro when the plants are quiet. The contractor's group plan didn't follow you out the door.
Start here: you can still get a nationwide PPO in Arkansas, and putting one in place is something I do every week.
Arkansas's marketplace is the simplest I see. Statewide, and so in Craighead too, the 2026 lineup is identical: 24 POS plans plus 28 PPOs sold by 2 insurance companies, nothing more. Line up silver plans for a 40-year-old before any subsidy and the least expensive PPO is a mere 3% over the least expensive POS plan. A POS plan costs less inside its network and has you get specialist referrals from your primary doctor. A PPO helps pay for doctors outside its network too, at a higher share, and skips the referral. Separately, private plans with medical underwriting offer PPO networks nationwide.
The end of a job-based plan can open a special enrollment period on HealthCare.gov, so you can pick a plan now instead of waiting for the fall. If COBRA is offered, keep it until the new plan starts; dropping it on purpose won't open that window.
Then comes the number that sets your credit: the shop's profit for the coverage year, its billings minus wire, drives and controls parts, the truck, tools, licensing and insurance. Mill shutdown work arrives in bursts, so estimate from what's scheduled and adjust when a big job lands.
A new outfit often sits inside the credit range, and that makes HealthCare.gov the usual place to buy, since the credit works only there. In Arkansas I'd generally steer you to a marketplace PPO: at 3% over the POS plans before credits, it removes the referral step and adds a measure of out-of-network coverage for very little. If a truly thin year drops the household low enough, Arkansas's ARHOME expansion can take adults earning no more than 138% of the federal poverty level.
Next step: Tell me what you expect the shop to bill and which doctors you see, and you'll see every marketplace PPO and POS plan with the credit applied.
After a stretch of steady shutdown contracts, a household usually ends up over the credit range, where every marketplace plan is full price. For healthy families, the next step is a quote on a medically underwritten nationwide PPO. Medical questions come first; the company then issues coverage, issues it with one prior condition excluded, or declines. That screening is why healthy applicants often pay less than the marketplace's list price, and it gives you a network that still works on a job in Missouri or Tennessee. I'll explain what each plan pays before you sign.
Next step: Ring me with your zip and the birth years on the plan, and a nationwide PPO quote will sit next to Arkansas's full-price plans.
If a spouse or child needs regular specialist care or a daily medication, stay with HealthCare.gov however strong the year. Its plans accept everyone and can't price health history. Here, the marketplace PPO is often the right pick for that person, since it costs so little more than a POS plan and doesn't require referrals.
Next step: List the doctors and prescriptions your family depends on, and I'll see which Arkansas plans cover them.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
No. For 2026, every county's marketplace medical plans are PPOs and POS plans.
For a household with the credit, usually. It runs about 3% above the least expensive POS plan, silver for a 40-year-old with no subsidy.
No. Losing job-based coverage can open a special enrollment period on HealthCare.gov, though cancelling COBRA voluntarily won't.
Possibly, in a thin year: ARHOME's income cutoff for adults is 138% of the federal poverty level.
Give me your county, who's going on the plan and a rough read on the shop's profit. I'll compare the Arkansas marketplace PPOs and POS plans with a nationwide PPO and tell you where I'd land.
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