Massachusetts was granted a one-year health insurance waiver by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to continue deciding on health insurance premiums using its existing rating factors, which are otherwise prohibited under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The rating factors are intended to protect small businesses that took on risks from the individual insurance market. Gov. Charlie Baker, who requested the waiver, believes it will delay significant increases in insurance rates for small businesses.

“Protecting small businesses from massive insurance rate hikes is essential to making sure job creators continue to thrive here and I am grateful the Obama administration granted Massachusetts this flexibility,” Gov. Charlie Baker, who requested the waiver, said in a statement.

The waiver extends the Bay State’s current transition period first granted in 2013 and extended in 2014, allowing small group market issuers to continue using two-thirds of current ratings factors through Jan. 1, 2017, after which the ratings factors will be reduced to one-third, before being phased out entirely on Jan. 1, 2018.