Trump has promised $500 health insurance rebates — but not in New Mexico

President Donald Trump on Thursday promised $500 refunds for nearly a million Affordable Care Act enrollees across 30 states, accusing the Biden administration of overcharging them for health insurance coverage.

But don’t expect a check in your mailbox: New Mexicans aren’t eligible.

The promised health insurance refunds come as the Trump administration makes a series of financial ploys to secure Americans’ votes ahead of the November midterm elections. In a speech Wednesday, Trump pledged to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the U.S. House and Senate — a proposal the Associated Press has estimated would cost $1.2 trillion.

In a recorded address released Thursday morning on the White House X account, Trump said the Biden administration “massively overcharged” Americans who purchased their insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchange.

“They were forced to pay excessive fees totaling at least $500 million,” he said. “The last administration knew about this, and they studied it — but they kept the money.”

Rebate checks, Trump said, would be sent to recipients’ home addresses “in just a few weeks.”

Trump promised the refunds to people who do not receive premium assistance under the Affordable Care Act and only in the 30 states that use the federally facilitated marketplace to sell Affordable Care Act coverage, according to a fact sheet released Thursday by the White House.

Those states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

New Mexico isn’t on that list because the state’s Affordable Care Act coverage is available through BeWell, the state health insurance exchange.

More than 84,000 New Mexicans signed up to get their insurance through BeWell during the last open enrollment period in late 2025 and early 2026.

A substantial chunk of those enrollees receive federal premium assistance. A recent report from the Legislative Finance Committee found about three-quarters of BeWell customers for plan year 2026 made between 100% and 300% of the federal poverty level, meaning they qualified for federal tax credits designed to bring down their insurance costs.

Healthcare affordability has been a political flash point in recent years, with both Democrats and Republicans pushing policies they say would rein in costs.

The issue occupied much of New Mexico lawmakers’ attention during the 2026 session, when legislators passed House Bill 4 to increase revenue distributions from the state Health Care Affordability Fund, one of the main tools the state uses to subsidize insurance premiums for people who get their care through the health insurance exchange.

But insurance keeps getting more expensive. Premium costs for people who get their insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces are set to increase by an average of 15% between 2026 and 2027, according to an August analysis from the health research and policy organization KFF.

In New Mexico, costs are rising even more steeply. State Superintendent of Insurance Alice Kane earlier this month approved an average increase of 24.4% for individual plans sold on and off BeWell.

Kane defended the decision as “actuarially sound,” while Rep. Nathan Small, a Las Cruces Democrat who chairs the Legislative Finance Committee, decried it as contrary to lawmakers’ efforts during this year’s session.

© 2026 The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, N.M.). Visit www.santafenewmexican.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.