March 19, 2026
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes a requirement that the Department of Labor (DOL) produce an annual report to Congress on self-insured employee health benefit plans utilizing data from the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report which must be filed annually for certain types of plans.
The 2026 Report to Congress updates previously submitted reports with 2023 data. ARC supports DOL with statistical analysis that is included in the Report and by developing Appendix A, which is published separately as the 2023 Group Health Plans Bulletin.
The Form 5500 filing requirements are such that the Report to Congress and its appendices focus largely on plans with more than 100 participants. Nearly 40 million plan participants received benefits in these large, self-insured plans in 2023, with an additional 30 million plan participants receiving health benefits from plans that pay certain claims or claims for certain benefits while insuring others.
Read the full 2026 Report to Congress here.