You can still get a nationwide PPO in Wisconsin through me, even though every marketplace plan in Milwaukee County is an HMO. Here is how travelers who keep a Milwaukee home handle coverage.
Hi, I'm Sam Jaber. I'm a Tampa-based health insurance broker licensed in 36 states, and I help travel nurses keep coverage that survives the end of every contract. We do it all by phone.
Think of a nurse who trained in Milwaukee, spent six years in a trauma unit downtown, then went travel. She still owns her duplex in Bay View and rents out the lower unit while she's gone. This year's assignments: a winter in Phoenix, a spring in San Antonio, a summer in Portland, with a couple of weeks back on Lake Michigan between each. When the agency plan ends with a contract and she shops HealthCare.gov from her Milwaukee address, every single plan is an HMO.
Milwaukee County has 35 individual medical plans for 2026, and all 35 are HMOs. The marketplace's PPOs are sold in 15 of Wisconsin's 72 counties, mostly up north and in the Fox Valley, and none in the Milwaukee area.
You can still get a nationwide PPO in Wisconsin through me. It's a private plan, priced on a health questionnaire, and providers in Phoenix, San Antonio or Portland are in network just like your doctor in Bay View.
Marketplace help is figured from the household's income across the coverage year. A traveler's year rises and falls with contract count, time off and any per diem work, plus the rent from the lower unit. Start from what's signed, then revise as you go.
Wisconsin's floor deserves an exact description. The state didn't adopt the ACA's Medicaid expansion, yet BadgerCare Plus covers adults, with or without children, up to 100% of the poverty level. From 100% to 400%, the marketplace credit generally applies. A long break doesn't leave you stranded between programs.
When job-based coverage ends, a 60-day special enrollment period opens on HealthCare.gov. COBRA can extend the agency plan, but if you later drop it on purpose or stop paying, that won't reopen enrollment. Choose before you elect.
Many travelers break the cycle with one plan of their own all year, so an assignment ending doesn't end their coverage.
Next step: Call me a couple of weeks before your contract wraps, and we'll have the gap covered.
The credit can only be used on HealthCare.gov, and in Milwaukee that means an HMO. An HMO generally pays outside its network only in an emergency, so on assignment you'd be paying for routine care yourself. For a nurse who's home a lot, that may be fine. For one gone most of the year, it's worth pricing a private plan even against a credit-reduced HMO, or planning routine care for your weeks at home.
Next step: Send me your contract calendar, and I'll compare a credit-reduced Milwaukee HMO with what a nationwide PPO would cost you.
Without the credit, a full-price HMO that stops at the county line is a hard sell for a traveler. A private nationwide PPO is the natural alternative. The insurer reviews your medical answers and issues the policy, issues it with a named condition excluded, or declines. Healthy nurses often pay under the marketplace's full price. We'll go through each plan's benefits together.
Next step: Book a call and I'll put a nationwide PPO quote beside the full HealthCare.gov prices for Milwaukee County.
If a daily prescription or regular specialist visits are non-negotiable, stay with HealthCare.gov at any income. Marketplace plans take every applicant and can't charge more because of health. Pick the HMO that includes your Milwaukee specialist and schedule visits around your time home.
Next step: Share your doctors and prescriptions, and I'll find the Milwaukee plans that keep them.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
No. All 35 marketplace plans in Milwaukee County for 2026 are HMOs.
Generally only in an emergency.
No. BadgerCare Plus covers adults up to 100% of the federal poverty level, and the marketplace credit generally starts there.
Yes. Healthy nurses can buy one privately through me.
Send me your home county, the year's assignment dates and your next likely destination. You'll get a plan for the gaps and a price on coverage that travels.
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