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Trump’s $500 Obamacare rebate plan: 1 million Americans may get payments before midterms – who qualifies?
The Trump administration plans to send up to $500 in direct rebates to 1 million Americans buying health insurance through Obamacare.
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President Donald Trump’s administration plans to send up to $500 in direct rebates to as many as 1 million Americans who buy their own health insurance through Obamacare without receiving federal premium subsidies, Axios reported.
The payments are expected to reach eligible enrollees in 30 states before the November 3 midterm elections. Trump was expected to preview the plan during his speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.
According to the report, the administration intends to use about $500 million in excess fees that the White House says were collected during the Biden administration and remained in federal accounts.
Deep Dive
An administration official told Axios that the money “was over-collected and just sitting there.”
Who would receive the $500 Obamacare payments?
The proposed rebates would not be available to every person enrolled in an Affordable Care Act marketplace plan.
Officials told Axios that the payments would be targeted at people who purchase marketplace coverage without receiving federal premium assistance. These enrollees pay the full cost of their plans and would be eligible for the direct payments under the administration’s proposal.
The states identified as having relatively large numbers of potential recipients include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin.
The administration has framed the payments as part of Trump’s broader healthcare agenda, which seeks to direct more federal healthcare money toward individuals rather than insurance companies.
An administration official told Axios that the proposed approach would help Americans afford health coverage and care.
Why is Trump proposing the rebates before the election?
The timing puts the proposal directly ahead of the November midterms, when Republicans are defending their congressional majorities.
Trump plans to highlight the rebates as part of his healthcare agenda, after his first-term effort to repeal Obamacare failed, according to the report.
The money behind the proposed rebates has been the subject of a political dispute before. In 2023, the Biden administration considered using the same pool of fees to provide free contraception to some people whose ACA plans did not cover it.
Republicans in Congress opposed that proposal, arguing that the fees were intended to operate the Obamacare exchanges and that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not have authority to redirect the money. The Biden administration eventually withdrew the plan.
After the 2024 election, some Republican congressional staffers who had opposed that proposal joined the Trump administration. Officials said the administration later reduced some fees to lower premiums and found that a substantial balance remained.
The administration now intends to use that balance for the proposed rebates, although the legal authority to redirect the money has not been publicly established.
The proposal represents a notable shift from Trump’s first-term effort to dismantle Obamacare. Instead of seeking to repeal the program, the administration is now presenting direct payments to consumers as part of its healthcare strategy.
