According to Medicare economists the Federal high risk pool's 5 billion dollars will run out quickly, they estimate they will last the fund into 2011.
Because They Lose A Lot of Money, Making Them The Most Expensive (non-corporate) "Welfare" Programs, High Risk Pools Are Designed To Exclude Many Who Need Care But Who Cannot Afford Individual Rates
But, without the safety valve for the well to do provided by high risk pools, by allowing the most affluent "uninsurable" sick to get individual insurance, the system's brutality would be spread across the income spectrum and would collapse even faster.
Currently, only around 5% all Americans can purchase non-catastrophic individual insurance. Most of them can't, not because of pre-existing conditions. They can't because for those who aren't in a group plan, non-catastrophic insurance is very expensive.