The Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday night that it was in the process of shorting the U.S. Treasury $3.5 billion.

Well, they didn’t exactly announce it.  You had to read between the lines.

The theft of $3.5 billion will help prop up insurers that have agreed to sell ObamaCare policies in the individual market.  Behind all the happy talk from Administration officials about the program’s success lies an unpleasant truth: insurers that participate in ObamaCare exchanges are bleeding money.

Those losses are coming despite billions of dollars in handouts the government is providing the industry.  Some of those handouts are entirely lawful; others, not so much.

The so-called “reinsurance” program falls into the latter category.