Paid Full Price for a HealthCare.gov Plan? A $500 Treasury Check Is in the Mail. Your 2027 Renewal Matters More.

If you buy your own health insurance on HealthCare.gov and get no subsidy, watch your mailbox. The Treasury is mailing $500 checks to nearly 1 million people in 30 states, and you don’t have to apply.

Cash it. Then spend more attention on your November renewal than on the check.

Where the $500 came from

Every HealthCare.gov plan carries a “user fee” that insurers pay to the federal exchange and pass along in your premium. In 2026 it’s 2.5% of premiums. The White House says the fees ran “far in excess of what was needed to run the exchange” and piled up as a surplus, so it’s sending part of that surplus back to the people who paid full price.

That framing holds up on the money, even if the blame is disputed. KFF’s Cynthia Cox told the AP the over-collection started under Trump’s first administration and left an estimated $1 billion unspent. Either way, it came out of premiums. Returning it to the people who paid those premiums beats letting it sit in a government account, which is what happened for years.

Here’s the catch. Nobody has explained how $500 was calculated or which years of fees it covers. And it lands in the weeks before the November 3 election, after earlier promises of $2,000 tariff rebates and $5,000 dividend checks haven’t paid out. This one, at least, is actually in the mail.

One more irony. The IRS’s own guidance says paper checks are “far more likely” than direct deposit to be “lost, stolen, altered or delayed.” The government is phasing out paper checks for that reason and is mailing these on paper anyway.

What $500 is worth next to your renewal

Take a full-price plan at $700 a month. That’s an example, not an average. The 2.5% user fee is about $17.50 of that, or $210 a year. The $500 check covers a little over two years of the fee.

Now look at 2027. Insurers proposed a median 15% increase, according to KFF. On that same $700 plan, that’s $105 more a month, or $1,260 a year. The check covers less than five months of the increase.

There’s a small break coming: CMS cut the HealthCare.gov user fee to 1.9% for 2027. On the $700 plan, that’s about $50 a year if insurers pass all of it through. It doesn’t come close to covering 15%.

Verdict: take the check. It’s yours. But shopping your plan is worth more than the check.

What to do

Check your mail for a Treasury envelope with a letter from the President. Deposit the check the day it arrives, by mobile deposit or at your bank, so it isn’t sitting in a mailbox or a kitchen drawer.

Ignore any call, text or email offering to “release” or “speed up” the refund. The fact sheet describes no application and no fee.

Keep the letter. Nobody has said yet whether the $500 is taxable, and your tax preparer will want it in April.

Then put November 1 on your calendar. That’s when open enrollment for 2027 opens. December 15 is the last day to switch for coverage starting January 1. Pull your 2027 renewal price and compare it against every plan in your area, especially if your income dropped this year and you might qualify for a subsidy. Our open enrollment guide walks through the switch, and our ACA explainer covers how subsidies are calculated.

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