WASHINGTON — The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put a number on President Donald Trump’s latest check promise. A fact sheet released Saturday said 20.8 million people are eligible for a $90 rebate on Medicare Part B premiums.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that his administration would immediately start sending checks of nearly $100 to more than 20 million seniors. He said the money would come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which Congress created in 2008 to finance improvements to the program. CMS said some people will get a $90 direct deposit in early October, followed by an email or a letter from Trump, and others will get a paper check from the Treasury later this month. Both tracks are aimed at arriving before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The agency said Congress has repeatedly pulled money out of the fund to offset other spending, and it described Trump as the first president to use the fund this way.
The rebate is separate from $500 checks Trump has promised to about one million people in Affordable Care Act plans across 30 states. The White House has said, without offering evidence NBC News cited, that those people were overcharged on exchange fees under Joe Biden. Trump said Thursday those checks had gone out. The one-time payments are also distinct from the enhanced ACA subsidies for people under 65, which the Republican Congress let expire last year.
In the same Friday post, Trump again said adult citizens would get a $5,000 dividend if Republicans hold the House and the Senate. Lawmakers in both parties have questioned that idea because the administration has not spelled out the policy that would fund it. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told NBC News last month the money would not come from taxpayers. Earlier pledges — a cut of DOGE savings, then a tariff dividend of at least $2,000 — did not turn into payments. The $90 Medicare rebate is the one CMS has now described in writing, with a head count and a calendar.