The Internal Revenue Service says U.S. health insurers as a group may have to pay a total of $15.5 billion in annual Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurer fees for 2020.
That’s up 8.4%, from a total of $14.3 billion for the 2018 fee year, according to IRS calculations.
(Related: Tax Deal Could Block Health Insurer ‘Fee’ in 2017)
IRS officials have posted the new health insurer fee total in IRS Notice 2019-50.
The notice is supposed to help health insurers comply with Section 9010 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
PPACA is one of the two laws in the ACA package. PPACA Section 9010 requires health insurers to pay a large amount of fees to the U.S. Treasury. Health insurers call the fee a health insurer tax.
The ACA created several new health insurance subsidy programs. The ACA also imposed a mandate for many individuals to own a minimum level of health coverage, or else pay a penalty, and for many employers to provide a minimum level of health coverage for many employees, or else pay a penalty.