More than 20 million people enrolled in Medicare Part B will receive a one-time payment of $90 to help cover their premiums, the White House said Friday. The money will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, a pool Congress created in 2008 that, by the administration's account, has never paid out before.
Most recipients will see the money arrive by direct deposit in early October, according to the administration. People without direct deposit will be mailed a check, also in early October, at the address they have registered with Medicare. Two groups are excluded: enrollees whose premiums Medicaid already covers, and higher-income beneficiaries who pay the Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount, a surcharge added to the standard premium.
That surcharge applies this year to people filing individual tax returns with modified adjusted gross income above $109,000 and to joint filers above $218,000. It reaches roughly 8 percent of Part B enrollees, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The White House directed beneficiaries to 1-800-MEDICARE to confirm whether they qualify and to the Social Security Administration, at 1-800-772-1213, to check on a payment.
The standard Part B premium is $202.90 a month in 2026, up $17.90 from last year, so the payment covers a little less than half of one month's standard premium. CMS has said that increase would have been about $11 a month larger had the administration not acted to address what the agency called "unprecedented spending on skin substitutes."
Trump announced the payments in a Truth Social post late Friday, promising "Checks" of "nearly $100" and calling the fund "a pointless 'Slush Fund'" that he said Democrats in Congress had used to pay for "Waste, Fraud, and Abuse" for "their Special Interest friends." He went on: "We are finally using this Fund, along with my Most Favored Nations Deals, to substantially LOWER costs for our Seniors."
At $90 apiece for more than 20 million people, the payments add up to at least $1.8 billion. The White House says Congress has given the fund $2 billion to make improvements to Medicare's fee-for-service program, the same figure the president cited, Reuters reported.
Lawmakers set up the fund in 2008 to improve original Medicare's hospital and medical insurance coverage, in ways that can include adjusting what Medicare pays health care providers and suppliers, the Congressional Budget Office explained in a 2023 review. By the time of that review, more than 30 laws had added resources to it and to a companion Medicaid fund or taken them away, the budget office found, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had never spent money from either one.
The White House presented the payments as a first, saying no administration had ever made payments from the fund and that earlier Congresses had used it in ways that drove up health care costs. It pointed in particular to $20.7 billion that it said Democrats took from the fund as part of the Affordable Care Act.
USA Today reported that it is unclear whether the White House has the authority to divert the money in the way the president described. The newspaper said it had asked the administration for information.
Trump said the Medicare payments are separate from the $500 refunds the administration is sending to nearly 1 million people it says were overcharged for coverage bought through the Affordable Care Act, a program the White House announced on Sept. 10.
In the same post, Trump repeated his promise that a $5,000 "Trump Dividend" would go to every U.S. citizen "if, and when, the Republicans win the Midterm Elections." Analysts, economists and even some Republicans in Congress have reacted to that proposal with skepticism, Reuters reported, adding that the Medicare announcement is the latest in a series of financial promises the president has made to voters ahead of the November midterms, with control of Congress at stake.