Hillsborough is my home county. If you pay for your own coverage anywhere from Plant City to Town 'n' Country, I'll show you whether a private PPO or a marketplace plan is the better buy for your household.
Hi, I'm Sam Jaber, a licensed health insurance broker, and Hillsborough County is where I live and work. Tampa is the county seat, and my Tampa page covers the wider bay. This page is just for Hillsborough.
The people who call me here are mostly on their own for coverage. Contractors in Plant City, real estate agents in Westchase, a couple running a food truck out of Seffner, someone who just left a hospital job downtown. I also help people by phone in the 36 states I'm licensed in, but this county is the one I know street by street.
Plenty of people here have been told PPOs are gone. On the marketplace, they're close to it: one company sells them in this county, and the price shuts most families out. Outside the marketplace, a private nationwide PPO is something I can set up for you, and for a healthy household paying full price it's often the first thing I'd price.
I pulled the federal plan file for Hillsborough County. It lists 173 medical plans from 7 insurance companies. That sounds like a lot of choice until you sort by network type: most are HMO or EPO plans, and only 14 are PPOs, all sold by a single insurer.
The PPO gap is steep. For a 40-year-old buying silver, the least expensive marketplace PPO in this county runs 138% more than the least expensive silver plan with any other network. That's before any tax credit, so it's the number a full-price buyer actually faces.
And Florida has not expanded Medicaid, which matters for households whose income dips hard in a slow year.
Picture a couple out past Plant City. He left a warehouse job to run his own lawn crew. She keeps the books for a few small businesses from home. Nobody has a health problem today. What they worry about is the bad day: a wreck on I-4, or a diagnosis that sends them to a specialist.
In this county that usually means two names. Tampa General runs a Level I trauma center, and Moffitt Cancer Center is on the federal list of NCI-designated cancer centers. When we compare plans, I check whether each network reaches the places they'd want, not just the family doctor.
If they're healthy and earn too much for a credit, a private PPO is where I'd start. It is medically underwritten, so their health answers decide whether it's offered and on what terms.
Next step: Tell me which hospitals matter to you and I'll show you which plans include them, private and marketplace side by side.
For a lot of Hillsborough households, the credit changes everything. It only works on marketplace plans, and when it applies, a marketplace HMO or EPO is usually the most affordable coverage you can buy here. There are enough of them in this county that we can usually find one built around the doctors you already use.
The part people get wrong is the income estimate. The credit is trued up on your tax return, so a guess that's too low can cost you in April.
Next step: Call me with last year's return and your best guess for this year, and we'll set an income figure you can live with.
If anyone in the household is in treatment, takes a specialty drug, or sees a specialist on a schedule, I lean toward the marketplace even at full price. Plans sold there have to take you no matter your history, and they can't charge you more for it. A private plan doesn't make that promise.
The work then is matching your specialists and pharmacy to one of the county's plans, which takes a little digging but is worth it.
Next step: Send me your doctors' names and your prescription list, and I'll narrow the 173 plans down to the few that keep your care intact.
There's no charge to you. The insurance company pays me when you enroll, and your premium is the same with or without a broker. You'll talk to me, not a call center, and after you're enrolled I'm still the person you call when a bill or a claim looks wrong.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
The federal plan file lists 173 individual medical plans for the county from 7 insurance companies. Only 14 of them are PPOs, and one company sells all 14.
Yes. The marketplace has one, but it costs far more than the other plans here. A healthy person paying full price can often do better with a private nationwide PPO, which I can quote.
No. I'm based in Tampa, but nearly everything happens by phone or video, and you can sign the application from home.
Nothing. The insurer pays me when you enroll, and the premium doesn't change because you used a broker.
Tell me your ZIP code, who needs coverage, roughly what the household earns, and which hospital you'd want on a bad day. I'll price the side that fits and tell you why.
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