Trump begins today sending $500 checks to nearly 1 million Americans

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump begins today, Wednesday, sending $500 checks to nearly 1 million Americans who, according to his administration, were overcharged through the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace for buying health insurance, as USA Today reports.

Treasury Department checks, together with letters signed by Trump himself notifying the beneficiaries, will start being sent to more than 950,000 Americans in 30 states, according to an administration official, USA Today reports.

“For years, the Biden administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov,” Trump writes in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the American newspaper. “That money belongs to hardworking Americans, not the Government, and now I am giving it back to you!”

Trump had announced the $500 reimbursement on 10 September in a video published by the White House, which coincided with the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. This money is separate from the controversial $5,000 dividend that Trump has promised to distribute to all Americans if Republicans keep control of Congress after the November midterm elections.

According to the White House, the Biden administration collected user fees from health insurance companies that consumers paid in the form of higher premiums — and the premiums exceeded what was needed to run the marketplace. The Trump administration has accused the Biden administration of letting the surplus of money sleep, USA Today writes.

The checks, sent five weeks before the November midterm elections, come at a time when Americans’ concerns about high costs and affordability constitute major political liabilities for Trump’s Republicans, who aim to keep power in Congress.

“You have paid into this broken System, and now you are finally getting something back,” Trump writes in the letter.

The 30 states where some Americans will receive reimbursement checks are states that do not have their own ACA insurance exchanges and rely on the federal exchanges administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: 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. Americans in the other 20 states will not receive checks, because their states run their own exchanges and the federal government did not collect user fees, USA Today reports.