You can still get a nationwide PPO in West Virginia through me. Here is how an investor in his late fifties with cabin rentals near Fayetteville plans coverage around rent, a possible sale and long drives to specialists.
Hi, I'm Sam Jaber. I'm a broker licensed in 36 states, based in Tampa, and West Virginia landlords buy their health coverage through me by phone.
The investor I have in mind is 58 and lives outside Fayetteville. He owns four cabins near the New River Gorge that book up with rafters, climbers and bridge-day crowds from spring through fall, plus three long-term rentals in Oak Hill. He left a salaried job years ago to do this full time, so he and his wife buy their own coverage. His cardiologist is in Charleston, about an hour of curving road away, and his wife's specialist is in Beckley. Now an offer has come in on one of the cabins, and he wants to know what selling would do to their health insurance.
Fayette County offers the same 37 individual medical plans for 2026 as the rest of West Virginia, from two insurers. All 15 PPOs belong to one company and all 22 HMOs to the other. The two plan types are close in price, and the PPO is the one that comes in lower: 3.5% under the HMO at silver for a 40-year-old, credit aside.
A nationwide PPO, sold privately and priced on health, is still available to West Virginia investors through me. At 58 it calls for a careful look, and I'll tell you honestly when the marketplace is the safer place for you.
Age matters more for you than for a younger investor. Marketplace prices can vary by age, but by no more than 3 to 1 for adults, and buyers in their late fifties sit toward the expensive end of it. Location adds to it: the least expensive silver plan in Fayette County costs 16% more than in Berkeley and Jefferson counties.
Income is where you have some control. The marketplace counts net rental income: bookings and rent after cleaning, platform fees, repairs, insurance, property taxes and depreciation. The credit runs on modified adjusted gross income, and help stops once that passes four times the federal poverty level. A cabin sale adds the gain to that year's income.
For an older couple, the credit is often worth a lot, because it covers the gap between a high benchmark price and the share your income is expected to pay. Between the two plan types, the silver PPO is usually the better buy here: it costs less, and it still pays something when you see someone outside its network, which an HMO generally won't outside an emergency.
The deciding question is your specialists. If the Charleston cardiologist and the Beckley specialist are in the PPO company's network, it's an easy call. If one of them is only with the HMO company, that changes things.
Next step: Send me last year's Schedule E and both of your specialists, and I'll price Fayette County's PPO and HMO after the credit.
The gain can lift your income well past the credit line for that one year. If you've been taking the credit in advance, the difference is settled when you file, and for tax years after 2025 it has to be repaid in full. Update your income on HealthCare.gov once the sale is certain, and if the year will land above the line, plan for full price.
If you're both healthy, compare that full price with a private nationwide PPO for the sale year. The insurer reviews your health history and approves, approves leaving one condition out, or declines. Plenty of healthy couples come in under the marketplace's unsubsidized price, and we'd go through every benefit before you decide.
Next step: Call me before you accept the offer, and I'll show you the sale year's price on and off the marketplace.
That person stays on a marketplace plan, sale or no sale. Marketplace plans accept everyone at the same price regardless of health. When your doctors are an hour or more away over mountain roads, keeping them in network matters more than a few points of premium, so choose the company whose network includes them.
Next step: List both of your doctors and your prescriptions, and I'll find the Fayette County plan that keeps your care where it is.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
Usually, yes. The gain generally adds to that year's modified adjusted gross income, which can shrink or end the credit.
It does. The figure HealthCare.gov uses is your rent minus the costs of running the rentals.
The PPO. In Fayette County, as everywhere in West Virginia, the least expensive silver PPO costs 3.5% less than the least expensive silver HMO.
Yes, if your health qualifies. I can price one for your household off the marketplace and set it beside the Fayette County plans.
Tell me where you live, your ages, what last year's Schedule E showed and whether a property is going on the market. I'll price your coverage for that year and tell you which way I'd go.
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