A federal subsidy is government money that reduces what a person pays each month for health coverage. The Trump administration says it will send $500 refund checks to nearly 1 million Americans enrolled in Affordable Care Act health plans, with mailing set to begin next month, weeks before the midterm elections.
The checks will not reach most people with ACA coverage. Payments go only to enrollees who do not already receive federal subsidies on their plans. Tens of millions of other ACA enrollees fall outside that group.
The Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare, is the federal law that created the marketplace where Americans can shop for individual health insurance plans. Within that marketplace, some enrollees qualify for subsidies that lower their monthly costs. Those people are excluded from this payment. The roughly 1 million who will receive checks are among those who do not receive that assistance.
Many of those recipients are in swing states. The White House said the payments would help "Americans most exposed to the higher costs imposed by the Biden administration's gross mismanagement of Obamacare," attributing the cost burden to the previous administration.
The actual origins of those costs point elsewhere. The Trump administration cut funding that helps people navigate and enroll in ACA plans. Republicans also declined to extend enhanced ACA subsidies that expired this year. Both decisions left more Americans paying higher costs without federal assistance. The checks are set to go out next month.