After the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2010, it created a review mechanism intended to prevent exorbitant increases in health insurance rates by shaming companies that sought them.

But this summer, insurers are turning that process on its head, using it to highlight the reasons they are losing money under the health care law and their case for raising premiums in 2017.

That has ignited an election-year fight between insurers and consumers, who are complaining bitterly about the double-digit increases being sought across the country.

. . .