Some Alaskans on HealthCare.gov are due $500 refund checks in October, but nobody has said how many

Alaskans who buy their own health coverage on HealthCare.gov and get no help paying for it are in line for a one-time $500 check starting in October.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the federal government will send refunds of $500 per person to nearly 1 million people in the 30 states that use the federal Obamacare exchange. Alaska is on that list. The money is limited to enrollees who receive no premium assistance and pay the full cost of their premiums.

The fact sheet gives no Alaska figure. About 73,300 Alaska residents, or 10.5% of the state, were uninsured as of 2023, and a check limited to current full-price enrollees does nothing for people who have no marketplace plan at all.

The White House describes the checks as returning a surplus of exchange "user fees" it says the Biden administration collected far in excess of what running the marketplace cost, then passed to consumers through higher premiums. "The government is going to pay the money directly to you… the big insurance companies lose and the people of our country win," Trump said in the fact sheet.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services describes them differently. In its 2026 payment rule, CMS finalized a federal marketplace user fee of 2.5% of monthly premiums, charged to insurers to fund marketplace operations, with a 2.2% rate if enhanced premium tax credits, the larger pandemic-era subsidies, were extended. That is up from 1.5% the year before.

The fact sheet is the only account of the program available, and it contains no response from CMS or from state regulators.

Benchmark Silver coverage, the mid-tier plan used to set subsidies, runs roughly $680 to $762 a month for a 40-year-old before help, among the nation's highest. For 2027, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska has asked to raise individual premiums 26.67% and Moda 9.3%, per federal rate review filings.

Neither is approved; both are pending review. More than 3,000 Alaskans dropped individual market coverage earlier this year.

The fact sheet does not say how eligible Alaskans will be identified or contacted before the October mailing.