- President Trump is sending $500 checks to nearly 1 million Americans who bought Obamacare coverage on HealthCare.gov without subsidies — Treasury checks and Trump-signed letters start going out today, September 30.
- The "Working Families Obamacare Refunds" program returns about $500 million the administration says was overcharged through marketplace user fees under the Biden administration.
- Only 30 states qualify — the ones using the federal exchange. States with their own marketplaces (California, New York, New Jersey and others) are excluded.
- No application needed: eligible recipients get the check automatically in the mail.
- Critics call it a midterm-season gimmick — 1 million get a check while 19 million enrollees face premiums set to jump about 15% next year.
Check your mailbox this week — it might be holding $500 you weren't expecting. Starting today, the Treasury Department begins mailing refund checks to nearly 1 million Americans who bought health insurance through Obamacare's federal exchange, each one arriving with a letter signed by President Donald Trump himself.
It's the opening move of what the White House calls the "Working Families Obamacare Refunds" initiative: roughly $500 million going back to consumers the administration says were overcharged on their premiums. And with the midterm elections five weeks away, critics aren't buying the timing for a second.
The checks are going out — starting today
According to an administration official, Treasury checks and Trump-signed letters begin going out on September 30 to more than 950,000 Americans across 30 states. The program was announced on September 10 in a White House video that dropped during the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.
Trump's letter pulls no punches about who's to blame. "For years, the Biden administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov," it says, in text viewed by USA Today. "That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the Government, and now I'm returning it to you!"
"You have paid into this flawed System," the letter adds, "and now you are finally getting something back." The White House says checks should reach mailboxes in the coming weeks — just before the ACA's open-enrollment period starts November 1.
Who actually gets one — and who doesn't
Here's the catch: most of the roughly 19 million Americans on ACA marketplace plans this year won't see a dime. The checks go only to people who bought coverage through the federally run HealthCare.gov and paid the full cost of their premiums — no federal tax credits, no subsidies. That mostly means higher-income households that earned too much for assistance.
The 30 qualifying states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Everyone else is out. If you live in a state running its own exchange — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington or Washington, D.C. — no check is coming. Subsidized enrollees are excluded too.
The silver lining for those who qualify: there's nothing to fill out. No forms, no applications — the checks are mailed automatically. (And don't confuse this with the separate $5,000 dividend Trump has promised all Americans if Republicans hold Congress after November — that's a promise, not a program.)
Where the $500 million comes from
The dispute centers on something most people have never heard of: marketplace "user fees." Insurers pay these fees to fund HealthCare.gov's operations, and the cost gets baked into premiums.
The Trump administration's argument is that under Biden, premiums were set higher than what the exchange actually needed to run — and the surplus just piled up, helped along by cuts to HealthCare.gov's advertising budget. So the White House frames the $500 payments as restitution — returning money already collected — not new spending. Critics counter that nobody has explained how the flat $500 figure was calculated, or whether it matches what anyone actually overpaid.
Why critics say it won't move the needle
The checks land against an uncomfortable backdrop: insurance is about to get a lot more expensive for nearly everyone else. After enhanced federal subsidies expired at the end of 2025, ACA premiums jumped roughly 20% this year — and insurers have already requested another 15% increase for 2027, according to KFF.
"A $500 check is real money, but it doesn't make a likely double-digit proposed premium increase disappear," Raymond James analyst Chris Meekins told MarketWatch. "Roughly 1 million people may get $500 while nearly 20 million rely on the ACA marketplace. The check is temporary; the premium increase is recurring."
There's also a political map problem. Spencer Perlman of Veda Partners notes that most of the 20 states running their own exchanges — and therefore ineligible — are Democratic-controlled, so the money flows disproportionately to higher-income households in mostly red states.
Bottom line: if you qualify, the check finds you — and anyone who contacts you asking for bank details to "release" it is a scammer. For everyone else, this October's mail run is just another reminder of how much health coverage costs.