Trump is sending $500 refund checks to nearly a million Americans. Here’s who gets them
By Tami Luhby, CNN
(CNN) — The Affordable Care Act $500 refund checks are in the mail to nearly a million Americans, along with a letter from President Donald Trump touting his healthcare accomplishments and casting blame on his predecessor.
The Treasury Department began sending the one-time payments on Wednesday to more than 950,000 Obamacare enrollees in 30 states that use the federal exchange, healthcare.gov.
They will be funded through unspent user fees paid by insurers. Trump has said that these Obamacare policyholders were “wrongly overcharged” during the Biden administration – a claim that some experts dispute.
The rebates are arriving a little more than a month before the midterm elections, and Republicans are fighting to maintain their control of Congress. Healthcare costs are a main concern of voters, especially as premiums and out-of-pocket costs rise for many folks.
In his letter, Trump wrote, “For years, the Biden Administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov. That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the Government, and now, I am returning it to you!”
“You have paid into this flawed System, and now you are finally getting something back,” he wrote, listing his efforts to root out fraud, reduce drug prices and boost spending on rural healthcare.
The refunds are going to policyholders who did not receive federal premium subsidies to buy Affordable Care Act coverage. (The vast majority of Obamacare enrollees are subsidized.) Most of the recipients are middle-class Americans who earn too much to receive subsidies this year – more than $62,600 as an individual or $128,600 for a family of four, according to the White House.
Trump announced he would provide the rebates last month, the day after he promised to send $5,000 dividend payments to all Americans adults if the Republicans retain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections. It remains a question as to whether he can fulfill that promise.
The move comes at a time when many Obamacare enrollees are struggling to maintain their coverage – or have dropped their policies – after congressional Republicans allowed the enhanced ACA premium subsidies to expire at the end of last year. That sent premium payments skyrocketing for many enrollees, particularly middle-income folks, for 2026.
Premiums are set to jump again for 2027. Policyholders will learn how much more they’ll have to pay when open enrollment starts on November 1, just before the midterms.
In a video announcing the refunds, where Trump also urged Congress to pass his healthcare plan, the president said that the $500 rebate will cover the spike in premiums “in many cases.” But some enrollees saw their monthly costs increase by far more than that, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.
Unspent fees
The rebates will be funded from fees that participating Obamacare insurers pay to support the federal ACA exchanges’ operations, according to the White House. The fees, which insurers pass along to enrollees in the form of higher premiums, also pay for marketing, outreach and enrollment assistance.
About $1.2 billion in unspent fees had accumulated when former President Joe Biden took office in early 2021, according to an analysis by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group. The money had been adding up largely because the first Trump administration greatly reduced spending on enrollment assistance, marketing, the healthcare.gov website and the federal ACA call center.
The Biden administration subsequently announced it would pour about $500 billion into these ACA operations. Enrollment roughly doubled during his term to nearly 22 million people, thanks in large part to the enhanced subsidies, which Biden signed into in early 2021.
The current Trump administration is reducing the fees, which it argues will help lower premiums.
The-CNN-Wire
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