As American insurers expand coverage for treatment related to the coronavirus, questions are arising about whether insurers will ask for federal aid and whether premiums for Americans will rise in 2021.

President Donald Trump indicated the administration could weigh helping health insurers in the same way hospitals received more than $100 billion in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package he recently signed.

“We haven’t discussed it but we’re talking to them,” Trump said at a daily coronavirus briefing Thursday. “Getting them not to pay copays, in the case of the big ones... that’s a lot of money they gave up. We’re discussing it with the insurance companies.”

View photos President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Thursday, April 2, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) More

Most insurers declined to comment on the potential to ask for government help. Cigna executive Timothy Wentworth recently told Yahoo Finance he doesn’t see the company seeking aid from the federal government.

But America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobbying group, has already asked the federal government for federal aid in a letter penned to Congress on March 19.

“Establish a temporary, emergency risk mitigation program to ensure that health care premiums do not spike, and that benefits are stable in the future,” the group said in the letter. “Health insurance providers are covering COVID-19 tests and needed treatments.”

View photos Coronavirus cases are still on the rise. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance) More

‘The federal government could have a payment or reinsurance program’

Cigna (CI), CVS Health (CVS), Humana (HUM), United Health Group (UNH), and Blue Cross Blue Shields have announced increased COVID-19 treatment coverage. Humana, Cigna and BCBS stand out, committing to cover both in-network and out-of-network visits and treatment sought related to the virus. The remainder are covering only in-network.

“The federal government could have a payment or reinsurance program that says the federal government will step up and pay for these costs or a portion of them,” Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, told Yahoo Finance. “Insurers that could never have priced for a pandemic of this scale [would be] shielded from passing on huge costs to households at America’s businesses.”

Wendell Potter, a former Cigna executive who now advocates for Medicare for All, noted that insurers are saving money by not paying for elective surgeries— which have all but halted in most of the country.

“They will certainly be looking for a handout if they think this gets to be such a pandemic that a large percent of their (enrollees) will need expensive treatment,” Potter told Yahoo Finance.

View photos A medical provider passes necessary paperwork to a patient at the STRIDE Community Health Center's COVID-19 drive-thru testing site at the Aurora Health and Wellness Plaza March 26, 2020. (Photo: Andy Cross/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images) More

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