Tariffs Are Driving 2026 Health Insurance Premiums Up

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President Trump has vowed to impose tariffs on a wide variety of goods from multiple countries. While consumers may expect the price of some imported goods to go up, what may be surprising is that these tariffs are already driving health insurance premiums up.

That is because some health insurance companies expect tariffs to drive up their own costs for prescription drugs that are imported into the United States. Retail prescription drugs represent about 12% of all private health insurance spending.

Health insurance companies must submit their proposed premium changes for the coming year to state regulators in the spring and summer. Several individual insurance market carriers are raising 2026 premiums by more than they otherwise would, due to the expectation that tariffs will drive up their prescription drug costs, which may or may not come to pass.  

“To account for uncertainty regarding tariffs and/or the onshoring of manufacturing and their impact on total medical costs, most notably on pharmaceuticals, a total price impact of 2.20% is built into the initially submitted rate filing.”
–UnitedHealthcare of Oregon (OR)

Optimum Choice of Maryland, Independent Health Benefits Corporation of New York, and UnitedHealthcare of New York are also raising premiums by 2.4%, 2.9%, and 3.6% more than they otherwise would because of tariffs’ impact on pharmaceuticals, respectively.

Not every insurer is explicitly mentioning tariffs or necessarily including an upward effect on their 2026 premiums. The extent to which tariffs increase the cost of healthcare and insurance premiums more broadly than these examples remains to be seen, but just the expectation of higher prescription prices is already causing premiums for some carriers to go up by more than they would otherwise.