The Trump administration plans to send $500 rebate checks by direct deposit to as many as 1 million Affordable Care Act enrollees it says were overcharged for coverage — before the Nov. 3 midterm election — Axios reported exclusively Wednesday.

Axios said Trump planned to mention the rebates in his Wednesday night speech at Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas. Officials told the outlet the money would come from what the White House describes as a $500 million fund of excess fees paid by ACA recipients during the Biden administration and later returned to the government. “That money was over-collected and just sitting there” in government accounts, a U.S. official told Axios.

Officials said the refunds are aimed at Obamacare enrollees who do not receive premium assistance, across roughly 30 states. Axios named Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Delaware, New Hampshire, Texas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri among states with relatively large numbers of people due refunds.

The timing is political as much as administrative. Axios framed the payments as part of Trump’s pitch that health subsidies should go more directly to people rather than insurers, alongside tax-cut and prescription-drug messaging, in a midterm environment shaped by prices and the Iran war. Trump failed to repeal Obamacare in his first term; Axios noted he now plans to use the program’s leftover fee money while pushing what officials call his “Great Healthcare Plan.”

In 2023, Axios reported, the Biden administration floated using the same fee pool for no-cost contraception for some ACA enrollees. Republicans objected that CMS lacked authority to divert exchange-upkeep fees, and Biden officials withdrew that proposal. After 2024, some GOP staffers who had opposed that plan joined the Trump administration, which later cut some fees to lower premiums and then eyed the remainder for rebates, officials told Axios.

“It’s time for Congress to pass President Trump’s Great Healthcare Plan, which will finally begin prioritizing people instead of insurance company profits by sending billions in taxpayer-funded health care dollars directly to Americans to help them better afford health coverage and care,” a U.S. official said, according to Axios.

Dated Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026: a pre-election $500 ACA rebate is the White House’s story — Congress still has to buy the broader plan that official is selling.

Sources