--- title: Trump Promises $500 Obamacare Refunds. Here's Who Qualifies description: The President said checks will be sent to nearly a million Americans as repayment for what he described as “excessive fees” charged under the Biden Administration. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/09/10/trump-obamacare-refunds/ author: Annika Neklason article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-09-10T19:29:55.473Z article:modified_time: 2026-09-10T19:29:55.697Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Promises $500 Obamacare Refunds. Here's Who Qualifies og:description: The President said checks will be sent to nearly a million Americans as repayment for what he described as “excessive fees” charged under the Biden Administration. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/09/10/trump-obamacare-refunds/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt820711301ead89c8/6aa30489130d6159d0949a43/trump-obamacare-refunds.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: trump-obamacare-refunds.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Promises $500 Obamacare Refunds. Here's Who Qualifies twitter:description: The President said checks will be sent to nearly a million Americans as repayment for what he described as “excessive fees” charged under the Biden Administration. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt820711301ead89c8/6aa30489130d6159d0949a43/trump-obamacare-refunds.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Pledges to Issue $500 Refunds to Nearly a Million Obamacare Enrollees. Are You Eligible? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Annika Neklason](https://time.com/author/annika-neklason/) ## Annika Neklason Editor Sep 10, 2026 7:29 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks at the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, on September 10, 2026. President Donald Trump speaks at the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, on September 10, 2026. Brendan Smialowsky—AFP/Getty Images by [Annika Neklason](https://time.com/author/annika-neklason/) ## Annika Neklason Editor Sep 10, 2026 7:29 PM UTC [President Donald Trump](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/donald-trump/) has said nearly a million Americans are eligible to receive $500 refunds for what he described as “excessive fees” charged to [Obamacare enrollees](https://time.com/7330071/obamacare-aca-premium-tax-credit-expiration-2026/) under the Biden Administration. Trump [announced](https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2098046589948281076) in a video message on Thursday that beginning next month, rebate checks will be issued to enrollees in 30 states that use the federal Healthcare.gov exchange to operate their Affordable Care Act (ACA) [health insurance marketplaces](https://time.com/article/2026/07/01/new-yorkers-lose-health-coverage-trump-cuts-health-care/). The White House [said](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/09/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-announces-the-working-families-obamacare-refunds/) that the Biden Administration overcharged ACA enrollees for their insurance coverage by passing on the costs of “user fees” intended to fund the operations of the federal exchange in the form of increased premiums. The money collected through those fees, the White House added, was “far in excess” of what was required to run the federal exchange. “Our Administration is doing the right thing and giving the money back to the people who were wrongly ripped off,” Trump said. Neither the President nor the White House have provided evidence for their claims. The announcement comes as ACA premiums have [surged](https://time.com/7341167/health-insurance-costs-aca-subsidies-2026/) after tax credits passed under Biden that helped reduce costs for most enrollees expired at the end of 2025, driving a sharp [decline](https://time.com/article/2026/09/08/losing-health-insurance-affects-everyone/) in enrollment. The Republican-controlled Congress declined to renew the subsidies last year, a decision the Trump Administration backed.Trump previously expressed support for a GOP [plan](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/12/10/obamacare-alternative-would-give-americans-up-to-1500/87700049007/) to deposit $1,000-$1,500 rebates into certain American’s Health Savings Accounts as an alternative to renewing the premium subsidies. That proposal ultimately failed in the Senate, however. The President has also floated issuing other refunds directly to Americans that have failed to materialize, including sending out [$2,000 dividends](https://time.com/7332447/trump-promises-check-to-americans-tariffs-revenue-dividend-stimulus/) funded by his sweeping tariffs and returning 20% of the savings achieved through the [now-shuttered](https://time.com/7336327/doge-disbanded-elon-musk/) [Department of Government Efficiency](https://time.com/7222251/doge-musk-federal-workers-government/)’s cuts to the federal government. **Read More:** [_Trump Promises $5,000 Dividend if Republicans Win Both House and Senate_](https://time.com/article/2026/09/10/trump-dividend-five-thousand-dollars-midterms-republican-convention/) In an address at the Republican Party’s midterm convention on Wednesday night, Trump separately [promised](https://time.com/article/2026/09/10/trump-dividend-five-thousand-dollars-midterms-republican-convention/) that a $5,000 dividend would be paid to every American adult if the GOP keeps control of both chambers of Congress in the upcoming elections in November. The proposal, which would require congressional approval, has drawn questions about where the funds for the dividend payments would come from and whether sending them out would violate [federal law](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597) that bars paying someone to vote a certain way. One Democratic lawmaker was quick to [state](https://x.com/danielsgoldman/status/2097998346526818679) on X that “Congress would never do it because it is corrupt and blatantly illegal.” It is not clear whether the promised Obamacare refunds will need to be approved by Congress. ## Who’s eligible for an Obamacare refund, and how will you get it? Refunds will be issued to Obamacare enrollees in the states that rely on the federal exchange who didn’t receive premium assistance under the ACA “and therefore paid the full cost of Biden’s premium tax,” according to the White House. Checks will be sent starting in October to the home addresses of the Americans the Trump Administration has deemed were overcharged, Trump said. He asserted that in many cases the $500 would cover “the entire spike in your insurance caused by Democrats,” but did not clarify how that figure was reached. The nearly 1 million people set to receive the refunds would represent roughly 5% of the 19.2 million who are [estimated](https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/aca-exchange-enrollment-2026) to currently be enrolled in ACA plans around the country. ## Which states are included? ACA enrollees will be issued refunds in the 30 states that use Healthcare.gov to handle insurance enrollment under the landmark health care law, rather than setting up their own state-run exchanges. Those states include 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, according to the White House. ## Rising health care costs are a widespread concern—and could be a political problem for Trump Trump’s pledge to issue refunds to hundreds of thousands of Obamacare enrollees comes amid a spike in health care costs that is a source of major concern for many Americans, and that threatens to only worsen moving forward as the uninsured population balloons. At the peak of ACA enrollment reached last year, prior to the premium subsidies expiring, more than 24 million Americans were receiving coverage through the marketplace. That number has fallen by more than 5 million in 2026 as premium costs have doubled or even tripled for many enrollees in the absence of the tax credits. And analysts have [warned](https://time.com/7341167/health-insurance-costs-aca-subsidies-2026/) that the impact of their expiration, alongside cuts included in Trump’s [Big Beautiful Bill](https://time.com/7300177/trump-signs-big-beautiful-bill/), could become far broader in the years ahead. The surge in the number of uninsured Americans in turn [threatens](https://time.com/article/2026/09/08/losing-health-insurance-affects-everyone/) to raise insurance costs for those who do have insurance and to increase the financial burden on hospitals absorbing the costs of treating people without it, raising the risk that they might be forced to cut services or close entirely. **Read More:** [_More Americans Are Losing Health Insurance—And Everyone Will Pay_](https://time.com/article/2026/09/08/losing-health-insurance-affects-everyone/) Nearly three-quarters of American adults surveyed in a Pew Research [survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2026/05/11/americans-see-health-care-costs-deficit-inflation-as-big-problems-facing-the-nation/) conducted in April said that the affordability of health care is a very big problem for the U.S., an increase of 6% from last February. Even before the ACA premium subsidies expired, Gallup [found](https://news.gallup.com/poll/710942/adults-ability-afford-healthcare-five-year-low.aspx) that fewer than half of Americans reported that they could consistently afford healthcare in the final months of 2025—a five-year high. And [polling](https://www.kff.org/health-costs/americans-challenges-with-health-care-costs/) from health care research organization KFF this May showed that more than a third of adults said they had skipped or postponed getting care because of the cost over the past 12 months. The issue also appears to be a vulnerable one for the President, who has faced low approval ratings for months. In April, KFF [found](https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/kff-health-tracking-poll-health-care-costs-and-the-midterms/) that roughly two-thirds of Americans disapproved of the Trump Administration’s handling of the cost of health care. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/09/10/trump-obamacare-refunds/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/09/10/trump-obamacare-refunds/"},"headline":"Trump Pledges to Issue $500 Refunds to Nearly a Million Obamacare Enrollees. 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