It seems that the US Navy is still not giving up on the idea of scrapping the F35C altogether.
Averting the Navy's Tactical Aircraft Crisis | U.S. Naval Institute
Averting the Navy's Tactical Aircraft Crisis by Ensign Anthony C. Robinson, U.S. Navy Proceedings Magazine - June 2013 Vol. 139/6/1,324
It basically shows that it would be cheaper for the US NAVY to buy F35A's iso F35C and have money left to buy an equal number of NG SHornets.
The SH's would be deployed and the F35A's sold of later to other customers.
This would mean that the original production numbers don't need to go down and money can be saved by the US NAVY because they operate with a much cheaper fighter for which all infrastructure is already in place.
No need for ship mods, base mods and a separate training line (F35).
Basically acc to the study it would be cheaper owning both the F35A and F18SH, while only using 1 of both operationally.
I'd be really careful about ascribing USN policy to a USNI article written by an Ensign.