The Benchmark-Premium Gap Across HealthCare.gov States, 2026

Canopy Press Editorial · Data & Research · Plan year 2026

Across the 30 states that use HealthCare.gov, the 2026 benchmark premium — the second-lowest-cost Silver plan that anchors every subsidy calculation — averages $1,099 a month in Wyoming for a 40-year-old, against $414 in New Hampshire: a 2.65× gap, or $8,222 a year for the same benchmark tier. Every figure is computed from CMS's plan-level landscape files — the table and county-level data are downloadable below.

The ranked table — all 30 HealthCare.gov states

State	2026 benchmark, age 40 (mo.)	2025 (mo.)	YoY	Counties
WY	$1,099	$878	25.2%	23
WV	$1,072	$919	16.6%	55
AK	$1,036	$1,089	-4.9%	30
UT	$823	$698	17.9%	29
AR	$774	$458	69.1%	75
NE	$768	$634	21.2%	93
TX	$746	$546	36.6%	254
KS	$735	$564	30.2%	105
FL	$729	$553	31.8%	67
TN	$726	$523	38.8%	95
MT	$707	$589	20.1%	56
AZ	$707	$528	33.9%	15
NC	$695	$544	27.9%	100
LA	$694	$564	23.1%	64
SD	$694	$655	5.8%	66
DE	$691	$534	29.4%	3
MO	$688	$556	23.8%	115
MS	$671	$483	39.1%	82
OK	$649	$548	18.5%	77
AL	$643	$535	20.3%	67
WI	$629	$537	17.2%	72
MI	$622	$504	23.4%	83
ND	$612	$574	6.7%	53
OR	$589	$569	3.6%	36
SC	$554	$469	18.1%	46
HI	$541	$493	9.7%	5
OH	$529	$453	16.8%	88
IA	$524	$441	18.9%	99
IN	$472	$378	24.8%	92
NH	$414	$326	27.0%	10

Why there is no clean national version of this number

These 30 states use the federal marketplace, so CMS publishes their plan-level prices in one comparable file. The other 21 jurisdictions — including California, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Vermont — run their own marketplaces and file rates separately with state regulators, in formats that don't reduce to a comparable benchmark table. That seam in the data is why no single primary source can rank all 51; any \"50-state\" premium comparison you see is an aggregator's assembly of mixed sources. This asset stays inside the seam on purpose: every number here reproduces from two CMS files.

What moved in 2026

Benchmark premiums rose sharply across the federal marketplace for 2026: the county-level year-over-year change averages 25.9% (median 24.3%) across 2055 counties. CMS's own enrollment-weighted figure is roughly 30% — the difference is weighting, not disagreement: heavily-enrolled counties saw larger increases. Note that the benchmark is a moving target by design — the second-lowest Silver plan can be a different plan each year, so year-over-year movement reflects both price changes and plan entry/exit.

Methodology

The metric. For every county in the CMS QHP Landscape Individual Market Medical files (plan years 2025 and 2026), we rank Silver plans by the essential-health-benefits (EHB) portion of the age-40 single-nonsmoker premium and take the second-lowest — the SLCSP, the same benchmark HealthCare.gov uses for subsidy math (a county with a single Silver plan uses that plan). State values are unweighted means across counties; CMS's published headline uses plan-selection weighting, which is why CMS reports ~30% where this method shows ~26%. Premiums are gross market prices: most enrollees receive tax credits and pay far less. Age-rating means a 60-year-old faces roughly twice these levels in most states. Full reproduction steps, source-file hashes and the county-level table are on the methodology page.

Transformed figures are Canopy Press's analysis of CMS QHP Landscape public files (data.healthcare.gov). Reuse permitted with attribution (CC BY 4.0). State CSV download.