The Obama Administration announced that 12 million Americans would be getting rebates from their insurance companies. The reason for the rebates was a regulation in the Affordable Care Act. Under the law, insurance companies must spend at least 80 percent of their premiums on actual patient care. (For some insurers, it's 85 percent.) Insurers that fail to meet that standard have to give some premium money back to their subscribers, in the form of rebate checks.
The rebates were not huge: The average was $151, although some consumers got rebates approaching $1000. But it’s yet another reminder that, by and large, the Affordable Care Act seems to be working. More than 5 million seniors have saved hundreds of dollars on their prescription drugs. As many as 6 million young adults now have comprehensive insurance coverage because, under the law, Americans under the age of 26 without access to coverage can enroll in their parents’ plans.