“It’s not an easy question,” Mr. Azar said.
The fact that the federal government ended up effectively making the payments aggravated many Republicans, and there have been rumors over the past several months that HHS might require the premium increases to be applied across all plans, boosting costs for all buyers in the individual market.
Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told reporters in April that the department was examining the possibility.
Apparently that will not happen, at least not for plan year 2019.
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.