The Trump administration began sending the refunds Wednesday to eligible Obamacare enrollees in 30 states, with the Treasury Department handling the distribution. The payments are expected to total more than $475 million.

The refunds are aimed at people who purchased Affordable Care Act marketplace plans through the federal exchange without receiving premium tax credits. The White House says excessive user fees charged to insurers to operate HealthCare.gov were passed on to consumers through higher premiums, creating a surplus that was not needed to operate the exchange.

Under the program, eligible individuals will receive $500 per person. Households with multiple qualifying members can receive multiple payments, and checks are being distributed to recipients in states that use the federally facilitated marketplace rather than their own state-run exchanges.

The White House announced the program earlier this month, initially saying the checks would begin going out in October. The administration moved ahead of that timetable, with the first payments now being issued on September 30.

President Trump has described the payments as a return of money that he says was unnecessarily collected from Americans through Obamacare. The checks are accompanied by a letter from Trump explaining the administration's position on the refunds.

The 30 states covered by the program include Texas, Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma, and several other states that rely on the federal marketplace. States operating their own ACA exchanges are not included in the refund distribution.

The refunds come as the administration continues to focus on reducing healthcare costs and changing how the federal marketplace operates. CMS has also lowered the federal exchange user-fee rate for the 2027 plan year from the 2026 rate, while implementing additional changes to marketplace oversight and eligibility verification.