The new Sept. 5 deadline gives carriers more time to tweak their premiums for HealthCare.gov in a year where uncertainty surrounding the law has reached a new high.
But even as the Trump administration gave insurers more time, it failed to answer the central question insurers are asking: namely, whether they will continue to receive key payments from the federal government.
“It's helpful, yes,” Jon Godfread, North Dakota’s insurance commissioner, said Friday of the delay. “But at the same time, it's an answer to a question we're not asking right now. We're asking are [cost-sharing reduction payments] going to be funded; are they not? Give us a definitive answer, and we still don’t have that.”
No one knows how the Trump administration will manage ObamaCare, which makes it exceedingly difficult for insurers to price their plans. Unless they receive answers soon, sources said, insurers would be in the same position come Sept. 5.
