Insurers take Obamacare fight to SCOTUS, demanding $12 billion from the US

Next week, on Dec. 10, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in three cases that put health insurers in the awkward position that the insured know all too well—wrangling with a seemingly intractable and massive entity for promised funds. The dispute stems from the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare.” The national health insurance initiative was created to cover millions of previously uninsured people, and the federal government sought to entice private insurers to participate by offering various risk-management measures to offset potential losses. One of these, the “risk-corridors program,” required the government to partially reimburse insurers if their costs rose unpredictably, while requiring companies to hand over part of any potential savings.