Editorial & Corrections Policy

How Pages Are Produced

PlainHealthPlan's county, state, issuer, and rankings pages are generated from a documented public dataset — the CMS Health Insurance Marketplace Public Use Files (PUF), the official federal record of ACA marketplace plans, premiums, deductibles, and issuers. We load CMS's published files into a structured database and render each page from that database. The figures you see — average premiums by metal tier, benchmark Silver premiums, deductibles, issuer counts, and year-over-year trends — are computed directly from CMS's numbers, not hand-typed and not invented by us.

This is a data-publishing model: one template renders thousands of pages so every county, state, and issuer is covered consistently. The editorial work goes into the data pipeline, the methodology, and the written guides — not into hand-authoring near-identical pages, which would add no accuracy and invite inconsistency.

How the Subsidy Estimates Are Derived

The premium, deductible, and issuer figures on our data pages are observed values straight from the CMS files. The one place we show a derived figure is the Plan Affordability Lookup, which estimates a premium tax credit from the household income, household size, and county benchmark you enter. That estimate applies the standard §36B applicable-percentage schedule and the 2026 Federal Poverty Level table. The applicable percentages are set annually by the IRS and are shown as approximations; the enhanced ARPA/IRA subsidies expired at the end of 2025, so for plan year 2026 the 400%-of-FPL eligibility cliff applies and households above it receive no credit. The calculator is an order-of-magnitude planning aid, not an eligibility determination — only HealthCare.gov or your state marketplace can determine your actual credit.

Sourcing Standards

• Primary sources only. Plan, premium, deductible, and issuer figures come from CMS's published Marketplace Public Use Files. Subsidy and Federal Poverty Level rules come from the IRS and HHS. Our methodology names each dataset and its vintage.
• Attribution in context. Each data page names its dataset and plan year near the figures and links to the methodology.
• Derived values are labeled. The subsidy estimate and the metal-tier averages are presented as our computation over CMS data, distinct from any single plan's listed price.
• No invented data. Where a value is unavailable for a county, metal tier, or issuer, the page says so (or shows N/A) rather than filling the gap with a guess.
• Pre-subsidy, standardized rates. Premiums are listed at a standardized age (27 unless noted) and before subsidies, so counties and issuers compare like-for-like. Your actual premium depends on age, household, tobacco use, and subsidy eligibility.

Update Cadence

CMS releases the Marketplace Public Use Files annually, ahead of each open-enrollment season. We refresh our database when each new release is published and recompute the derived figures. Between annual releases the numbers are stable because the source itself does not change. The plan year (currently 2026) is shown on the data pages and in the methodology.

Corrections Process

If a figure on PlainHealthPlan looks wrong, please tell us. Because our pages are generated from CMS data, a genuine error almost always traces back to either the source data or our processing of it — so this is how we handle a report:

1. Report. Email us through the contact page with the page URL and the number that looks off.
2. Verify. We compare the figure against the CMS source data for that county, issuer, and plan year.
3. Fix at the source. If the value is wrong on our side, we correct it in the database and pipeline that generate the page — not just on the single page — so every affected page is fixed at once. If the figure faithfully reflects CMS's published data, we explain that and add context where useful.
4. Note it. Material corrections are reflected the next time the page rebuilds, with the plan year shown so you can see which release a page is based on.

We aim to acknowledge data-error reports within a few business days.

Editorial Independence

PlainHealthPlan is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with CMS, the U.S. government, HealthCare.gov, or any insurance issuer. Our guides and analysis are not influenced by advertisers; advertising, where present, is clearly distinguishable from editorial content and never determines which counties, plans, or issuers we show. Our rankings are computed mechanically from CMS figures, so no issuer, county, or state can pay to move up a list.

Appropriate Use

PlainHealthPlan is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute insurance, medical, tax, or financial advice. Premiums are standardized benchmarks and the subsidy figures are estimates — not a quote or an eligibility determination for any specific person or plan. What you actually pay depends on your age, household income, county, tobacco use, and subsidy eligibility. For enrollment and an official price, use HealthCare.gov or your state marketplace, and consult a licensed navigator or broker for personalized guidance.