{mosads}An HHS spokeswoman did not respond to a request for more information.

HHS initially had trouble getting people to enroll in the high-risk pools, partly because the premiums were higher than expected. The department loosened its eligibility criteria to make the program more attractive.

The high-risk pools came with $5 billion in funding. Slightly less than half of that money remains — only enough to cover the expenses of the roughly 100,000 people who are already enrolled for the rest of this year, according to the Post.

Republicans have proposed a similar system of government-run high-risk pools as an alternative to the healthcare law’s requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions. 

But a top HHS official told the Post that the experience with this high-risk pool shows that “this is really not a sensible way for the health-care system to be run.”