President Donald Trump has been sending checks to millions of Americans ahead of the midterms, seemingly in an effort to encourage voters to forget Republicans’ recent destructive actions making healthcare harder to access and afford.

President Donald Trump has in recent weeks unveiled multiple schemes to send checks to millions of Americans, adding letters explaining that funds are meant to help with healthcare costs. The move — unveiled weeks ahead of the midterm election — suggests an effort to encourage voters to forget Republicans’ recent destructive actions making healthcare harder to access and afford, experts told TPM.

Several experts also described at least one of the two check-mailing schemes as based on a “legally dubious” interpretation of how the executive branch may use the pool of funding it’s tapping into.  

President Donald Trump is sending more than 20 million Medicare recipients a one-time $90 payment — less than half the cost of a single month’s standard Medicare Part B premium — just weeks before the midterm elections.

Trump announced the payments late Friday on Truth Social, describing them as “Checks” of nearly $100 for “wonderful Seniors.”

The White House clarified that eligible recipients will receive $90, mostly through direct deposit beginning in early October. The standard Medicare Part B premium is $202.90 per month in 2026.

The payments will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, established by Congress in 2008 to fund improvements to Medicare’s fee-for-service program. The White House said approximately $2 billion is available in the fund and that it has never previously been used to make direct payments to Medicare recipients.

Trump called the fund a “pointless ‘Slush Fund’” that Democrats had used for “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse for their Special Interest friends.”

Most Medicare Part B recipients will qualify, although people whose premiums are paid by Medicaid and higher-income recipients who pay an income-related adjustment will not, according to the White House.

The payments are the latest in a series of cash promises from Trump as Republicans approach the Nov. 3 midterms. His administration has also announced $500 refunds for nearly 1 million Affordable Care Act enrollees who it says were overcharged under the Biden administration.

Trump used the same Truth Social post announcing the $90 Medicare payments to renew another, substantially larger promise.

Americans, he said, “can also rest assured” that a $5,000 “Trump Dividend” would be distributed to every U.S. citizen “if, and when, the Republicans win the Midterm Elections!”

The administration has not detailed how such a $5,000 payment would be funded or enacted.

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