You can still get a nationwide PPO in Arkansas, and the state's own marketplace sells PPOs at nearly the same price as everything else. Here's how builders keeping up with Northwest Arkansas growth are deciding.
Hi, I'm Sam Jaber. I'm a broker who handles health insurance and nothing else, I work out of Tampa, Arkansas is one of my licensed states, and I take care of clients entirely by phone.
Northwest Arkansas hasn't stopped growing, and builders there feel it. Picture one based in Rogers whose crews go from one subdivision to the next across Benton and Washington counties: Bentonville, Centerton, Springdale, and the hills outside Fayetteville. Families keep moving in, lots keep getting cleared, and his calendar fills a season ahead. His own health plan, though, is something he picks fresh each fall, with nobody to ask.
Here's the short answer: you can still get a nationwide PPO in Arkansas, and I can arrange it for you.
I'll be candid about the marketplace, too, because Arkansas is unusual. Every county in the state gets the same 52 medical plans for 2026: 28 PPOs from 2 insurance companies and 24 POS plans, with no HMOs or EPOs at all. For a 40-year-old on silver with no subsidy, the least expensive PPO is just 3% above the least expensive POS plan, and that gap is identical from Bentonville to Texarkana. A POS plan rewards staying in its network and asks your primary doctor to refer you to specialists; a PPO pays toward doctors outside its network at a higher cost, with no referral. A nationwide PPO is a separate product, sold privately and priced after a medical review.
With the plan types priced so close together, what moves your premium most in Arkansas is whether the household qualifies for the premium tax credit. That depends on net self-employment income for the coverage year, the profit left once lumber, trusses, subs, equipment, permits, insurance and trucks are paid. Estimate it carefully and update it when closings move.
Full price went up sharply this year: the Arkansas Insurance Department approved an average increase of 22.2% for individual plans for 2026.
A household that clears the credit range pays the full approved price for every marketplace plan. That's when a healthy family should get a quote on a medically underwritten nationwide PPO. The company starts with medical questions, then writes the policy, writes it without coverage for one earlier condition, or passes. Because it can choose, a healthy household often lands below the marketplace's list price. Its network also keeps working on a trip to Branson, a ballgame in Dallas, or a winter week on the Gulf. Benefits differ by plan, so we go through them line by line before you decide.
Next step: Phone me with your county and your family's birth years, and I'll quote a nationwide PPO against Arkansas's full-price marketplace plans.
A chronic illness or a must-have prescription in the family means sticking with HealthCare.gov at any income, since those plans take everyone at the standard price. With PPOs priced so close to POS plans in Arkansas, a marketplace PPO is often the natural home for that care, especially if a specialist you rely on isn't in a POS network. In a very lean year, ARHOME, the state's Medicaid expansion, is there for adults at or under 138% of the federal poverty level.
Next step: Send me the doctors and medicines your family can't do without, and I'll check which Arkansas plans keep them.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
Yes. For 2026, 28 of the 52 medical plans offered in every Arkansas county are PPOs.
About 3% more than the least expensive POS plan for a 40-year-old on silver before subsidies, and the same everywhere in the state.
The Arkansas Insurance Department approved an average increase of 22.2% for individual health plans.
Yes. Its expansion runs under the name ARHOME and reaches adults with income as high as 138% of the federal poverty level.
Your county, the people on the plan and a ballpark of what the company netted last year will do. I'll price the Arkansas marketplace PPOs and POS plans against a nationwide PPO and tell you which I'd pick.
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