Health insurance, audience by audience

What health insurance really costs depends on who you are and where you live — a freelancer in Texas and one in California face different marketplaces, different prices, and different subsidy math. These guides answer the question for one audience at a time, state by state, using actual 2026 filed rates rather than national averages.

Every guide covers the same ground honestly: which marketplace your state uses, what Silver plans actually cost at different ages, how the premium tax credit works on self-employment income, the deduction most people miss, and the mistakes that cost real money at tax time. Each one includes a subsidy estimator pre-filled for that state — and if you just want your number, the 2026 subsidy calculator works for any ZIP, no email required.

Self-employed is our first deep guide; more audiences are being built.