U.S. President Donald Trump said the federal government will begin issuing $500 Obamacare refunds in October to nearly 1 million people enrolled under the Affordable Care Act. According to a White House fact sheet, the measure applies to policyholders in 30 states that use the federally run health insurance exchange.
A White House official said the main recipients will be middle-income households that do not currently receive federal assistance to help cover insurance premiums. The total value of the payments is expected to reach about $500 million.
The move comes only weeks before the midterm elections. A day earlier, Trump also said that, if Republicans win, the government would send a separate $5,000 election “dividend” to every adult U.S. citizen.
CNBC reported that the announcement comes amid a broader affordability squeeze for U.S. households and after millions of families saw health insurance premiums jump when enhanced ACA subsidies expired at the end of 2025. Health policy experts say the $500 refunds fall far short of offsetting those higher costs.
Jonathan Oberlander, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, described the measure as more of a form of “damage control” than effective health policy. In his view, the announcement is tied more closely to the 2026 congressional elections than to solving structural problems in the insurance market.
Who qualifies for the refunds
The refunds are available to Obamacare enrollees in 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. Those states rely on the federal ACA exchange, while the rest operate their own marketplaces.
The White House said the $500 payments would be funded from a surplus of “user fees,” which it described as excessive charges from the Biden administration that were passed on to consumers through higher premiums. Oberlander, however, said those fees moved up and down during the Biden administration and were at times lower than they had been during Trump’s first administration.
A temporary expansion of ACA premium tax credits expired at the end of 2025 after the Republican majority in Congress blocked Democrats’ effort to extend it. As a result, households earning more than 400% of the federal poverty line — about $63,000 for an individual and $129,000 for a family of four — lost all access to ACA subsidies and now pay the full, unsubsidized premium.
A White House official said that group would primarily benefit from the $500 checks. Some people earning between 100% and 400% of the poverty line may also qualify. Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, said that could include people in their 20s living in lower-cost areas who do not qualify for premium assistance.
The end of the enhanced subsidies, which had been in place since 2021, pushed up insurance costs for most ACA enrollees and led millions either to drop coverage or shift to cheaper, less comprehensive plans. The Department of Health and Human Services said in June that ACA marketplace enrollment had fallen by about 3 million people, or 13%, as of February from a year earlier. Levitt said $500 checks would be welcome, but for many households they would cover only a small share of the thousands of dollars in extra costs caused by the subsidy expiration.
