Republicans, fearing that this could turn into an open-ended government bailout in the event of industry-wide losses, included a provision in last year's spending bill that limited the program, requiring HHS to pay out only from the pool of money collected, rather than supplementing it with other sources of government funding. President Obama signed that bill.
There a few conservative Congressmen and Senators who are responsible for that. Obama signed the budget agreement because his strategy is to just keep passing Executive Orders, and when he runs out of money, to force the GOP to cave in - as they seemingly always do.
But you are correct - because of that budget provision, we see the Dept of HHS pitching a tantrum, which this article hightlights.
I think it was mainly Rubio who managed to insert the poison-pill.
If only he wasn’t an amnesty pimp :-/