Ranked 12 of 15 states · median $807/mo · CMS PY2026
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A 40-year-old landscape contractor in Texas pays a median $807/month for a Silver plan before subsidies — 12th of 15 on cost. The cheapest plan in the state is $540 from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas in Cameron. On highest out-of-pocket maximum, Texas ranks 13 of 15 for this occupation.
For work with real injury exposure the premium is the wrong headline number. What decides a bad year is the annual out-of-pocket maximum — the ceiling you stop paying at. A fall, a fracture, an imaging series and a course of physical therapy will reach that ceiling on any metal tier, so the states below are ordered by worst-case exposure.
Occupational context: Heat illness; equipment injury; pesticide exposure.
Two things get confused here constantly. Risk exposure decides what coverage you should buy. It does not decide what you are charged — Texas carriers rate on age, ZIP, tobacco and family size, full stop. A landscape contractor with a bad back and a healthy 40-year-old office worker in the same county see the same number.
Premium is set by rating area, so a landscape contractor in one Texas county can pay materially more than one an hour away. Six counties from across the state, cheapest Silver plan for a 40-year-old:
| County | Cheapest Silver @40 | Issuer | Deductible | Carriers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fisher | $894 | Ambetter from Superior HealthPlan | $6,000 | 3 |
| Clay | $913 | Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas | $4,000 | 1 |
| Irion | $920 | Ambetter from Superior HealthPlan | $6,000 | 3 |
| Sutton | $920 | Ambetter from Superior HealthPlan | $6,000 | 3 |
| Jones | $953 | Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas | $4,000 | 2 |
| Cameron | $540 | Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas | $1,500 | 5 |
The spread across just these six is $413/month — $4,960 a year for the same metal tier. Statewide the range runs $540 to $1,409. Coverage by County publishes all 254 Texas counties individually.
| Texas — worst-case exposure | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Lowest annual out-of-pocket maximum | $5,000 |
| Highest annual out-of-pocket maximum | $10,600 |
| Cheapest Gold plan @40 | $467 — Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas |
| Gold deductible | $500 |
| Cheapest Silver @40 | $540 — Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas |
| Cheapest Silver @50 | $754 |
For a landscape contractor, the gap between $5,000 and $10,600 in annual out-of-pocket maximum is worth more than any premium difference on this page. One serious injury reaches that ceiling regardless of which plan you picked.
Source: CMS Plan Year 2026 Qualified Health Plan Landscape file. 13,013 plan records across 254 Texas counties. Full-price filed rates before premium tax credits — verify at enrollment.
Cheaper for the same coverage: Kansas ($765), Florida ($789), Utah ($805). More expensive: North Carolina ($828), Arkansas ($828), Nebraska ($875).
Side-by-side: Texas vs Florida · Texas vs Utah · Texas vs North Carolina · Texas vs Arkansas
A caveat on the table above: rating is by residence, not by job site. A landscape contractor living in Texas and working across a state line still buys Texas plans. A genuine permanent move does trigger a special enrollment period, but the plan year restarts with a fresh deductible.
If you file a Schedule C as a landscape contractor, the categories that usually show up are: Equipment, truck, trailer, materials, licensing. The health premium itself is normally an above-the-line deduction under IRC §162(l), which reduces AGI rather than requiring you to itemize. Your CPA should confirm it against your actual situation.
If your household income is above the subsidy range, ACA is not automatically the answer. There are other categories of coverage that may fit, and they work very differently. That is a conversation, not a web page.
The cheapest Silver plan for a 40-year-old in Texas is $540 per month from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, with a state median of $807. Both figures are full price before premium tax credits; most buyers pay less after subsidies.
No. Texas exchange plans are guaranteed issue and community rated, so a landscape contractor pays exactly what anyone else of the same age in the same ZIP pays. Occupation is not on the application as a rating factor.
No. Only EPO and HMO and POS plans were filed for 2026.
Texas ranks 12 of 15 states covered here, at a median $807 per month. Indiana is cheapest at $558 and Nebraska is most expensive at $875.
Below the cliff. At this income a single-person household remains eligible for a premium tax credit in 2026.
This occupation is below the cliff in all 21 states reported.
What this figure is. It is the median annual wage BLS reports for Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers (SOC 37-3011) in Texas. BLS surveys wage and salary workers and excludes the self-employed, so it is a benchmark for the occupation in this state — not the income of a self-employed landscape contractor. Premium tax credit eligibility is set by household modified adjusted gross income and household size, not by occupation, so treat this as a reference point rather than a determination of what you qualify for.
Why the cliff is back. The enhanced premium tax credits expired on 31 December 2025. For plan year 2026 the 400% FPL limit applies again, so household income above $62,600 ends premium tax credit eligibility outright.
This page compares states. For Texas specifically — county-by-county carriers, plan data and enrollment help — I publish that on Coverage by County, including a page written for Landscape Contractors in Texas and a blog covering deductibles, subsidies and special enrollment.
The biggest change here is a carrier walking away. Cigna leaves the ACA individual market on January 1, 2027 — one of the 15 carriers writing in Texas today. Every a landscape contractor on a Cigna plan is moving, and doing nothing just means the marketplace chooses the replacement.
On price the only honest number today is national: the Peterson-KFF read of 2027 filings puts the median proposed rise near 15%, spanning −1% to 54%. Final Texas rates are not approved, so any precise 2027 figure quoted for this state is guesswork.
Mark November 1, 2026 to open and December 15 to act. That second date guarantees cover from January 1 in Texas regardless of how the current litigation over the enrollment window resolves.
There is still no PPO on the Texas marketplace — not in any of its 254 counties. Every plan is an HMO, EPO or POS, which for a landscape contractor working across a wide area is the binding constraint, not price.
You already know you are changing plans — Cigna is leaving. The only real question is whether you pick the replacement or the marketplace picks it for you, and that is a much easier decision made in August than in the second week of December.
Give me a ZIP and I will tell you three things:
The sticker price is rarely what Landscape Contractors in Texas end up paying. Start with a ZIP and I will work out your actual number.