Higher Costs and the Affordable Care Act: The Case of the Premium Tax

“The ACA contains insurance reforms, medical device taxes, pharmaceutical fees, and insurance company
fees that will raise the cost of insurance for millions of individuals, small businesses and households.
This analysis suggests that the insurance tax in isolation will raise premiums by roughly 3 percent. An
important topic for future research is to perform similar analyses for the other cost-raising aspects of the
ACA in order to assess the overall pressure on premiums.”