Trump's $500 Obamacare 'Refund' Checks Are Skipping California

The White House says HealthCare.gov users were overcharged. Covered California enrollees never paid that federal fee, so they're left out.

President Donald Trump's $500 Obamacare checks were set to start going out Sept. 30 to nearly 1 million people, and none of them are headed to California.

The checks are going only to states that use the federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov, USA Today reported. California runs its own marketplace, Covered California. According to the outlet, in the 20 states that run their own exchanges, the federal government never collected the user fee the refund is supposed to return.

If you buy your insurance through Covered California, there's no $500 check coming.

Here's what the administration says it's refunding. The White House says insurers paid user fees to fund the federal exchange and passed them on to customers as higher premiums. It says those fees brought in more than the exchange cost to run, and it accuses the Biden administration of sitting on the extra money. That's the administration's account of the surplus. It hasn't been tested anywhere a court or an auditor would look.

Trump puts it more bluntly in a letter that goes out with each check, which USA Today viewed. "For years, the Biden administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov," the letter says.

The checks come from the Treasury Department. An administration official told the outlet they're going to more than 950,000 people across 30 states. The list includes Arizona and Oregon, two of California's neighbors, along with Texas, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Hawaii. Nevada, which also borders California, isn't on it.

The White House said most people getting a check earn about 400 percent of the federal poverty line. For someone living alone, that's roughly $64,000. A household of four at that level brings in roughly $132,000. Some lower-income enrollees, between 100 and 400 percent of the poverty line, are getting checks too.

The timing isn't subtle.

Trump announced the payments Sept. 10 in a White House video that ran during the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. The first checks go out about five weeks before the November election, when Republicans are trying to hold Congress while voters are angry about what everything costs. The $500 checks are separate from the $5,000 dividend Trump has promised every American if Republicans keep control of Congress.

Health insurance is part of that cost fight. The enhanced Obamacare subsidies expired at the end of 2025 after Trump and congressional Republicans declined to extend them, and USA Today reported that premiums went up for millions of people as a result.

"That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the Government, and now I'm returning it to you!" the letter says.

If you've got family in Arizona or Oregon who buy their own coverage, the check they'll get comes from the Treasury, with a letter signed by the president in the same envelope.

Source: usatoday.com, retrieved September 30, 2026.