(Reuters) - Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan is seeking nearly $185 million in fees for representing health insurers that are now set to receive $3.7 billion from the federal government under an Obamacare program.

The firm made the fee request on Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court in April ruled the federal government owed insurers $12 billion under a program aimed at encouraging them to offer medical coverage to previously uninsured Americans.

Those sums were owed under the Affordable Care Act's "risk corridor" program, which was designed to mitigate insurers' risks from 2014 to 2016, when they sold coverage to previously uninsured people through exchanges set up under Obamacare.

The justices by an 8-1 vote reversed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit holding that Congress through appropriations riders had suspended the government's obligation to make payments under the program.

Quinn Emanuel did not litigate the cases before the Supreme Court. But in a filing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, it said was the first firm nationally to file a lawsuit in 2016 over the government's failure to make risk corridor payments.

It argued the firm and the lead plaintiff in the proposed class action, Oregon-based Health Republic Insurance Company, took a "substantial risk" pursuing the case, which was followed by a flurry of similar lawsuits by other insurers.

The case was later stayed pending the outcome of other insurers' cases, but Quinn Emanuel said it "did not remain idle" as it submitted amicus briefs to the Federal Circuit and Supreme Court.

"Quinn Emanuel's performance as class counsel more than justifies its requested fee award," the firm's lawyers, led by Stephen Swedlow and J.D. Horton, wrote.

In 2019, the firm had gross revenues of $1.25 billion, according to the trade publication The American Lawyer.

Swedlow declined to comment.

Under the risk corridor program, insurers who paid out significantly less in claims on policies sold through ACA exchanges in their initial years of existence than they took in from premiums had to pay some of their gains to the government.

Those who paid out more were entitled to compensation from the government for part of their losses. Republicans opposed to Obamacare have called the program an insurance industry "bailout."

In December 2014, Congress passed an appropriations bill for the 2015 fiscal year that included a rider barring HHS from using general funds to pay risk corridor obligations.

For the fiscal years 2015 through 2017, Congress passed appropriations riders that barred the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services using general funds to pay the government's risk corridor obligations.

As a result, the government could compensate insurers only with the money it collected from insurers that paid less than they took in from premiums. Payments from insurers, though, could not fund all of the claimed risk-corridor payments.

The case is Health Republic Insurance Company v. United States, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, No. 16-cv-00259.

For the plaintiffs: Stephen Swedlow and J.D. Horton of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

For the United States: Charles Canter and Marcus Sacks of the U.S. Justice Department