By Owen Houtakker
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

CHEYENNE — Thursday morning, President Donald Trump announced the Working Families Obamacare Refunds, through which he promised to return hundreds of millions in alleged overcharges collected during the Biden administration.

The president said the refunds will come in the form of a $500 check, set to be issued to nearly 1 million Affordable Care Act enrollees across 30 states, including Wyoming. Eligible enrollees are those who do not receive premium assistance.

Refunds will begin to be sent in October, according to the White House news release.

In a similar move Wednesday night, during a speech at the Republican Midterm Convention in Texas, Trump promised to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.

According to the Thursday release, the ACA refunds are aimed at “Americans most exposed to the higher costs imposed by the Biden administration’s gross mismanagement of Obamacare.” The release provided no evidence to support that claim.

In a corresponding video released by the White House on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Trump explained why he believed this refund was necessary.

“Our administration is doing the right thing and giving the money back to the people who were wrongly ripped off,” he said.

The Trump administration claims Americans were overcharged through “user fees” passed on to customers in the form of higher premiums during the Biden administration, but did not provide evidence of that claim.

In the release, Trump claimed that “these refunds will cover the entire spike in your insurance,” and blamed the Democrats for the increase in premiums.

However, according to previous WTE and WyoFile reporting, once Republicans in Congress allowed COVIDera tax cuts to expire last year, premiums in Wyoming rose by as much as 421%, the largest increase in the nation. For example, according to WyoFile, a Lander woman and her husband saw their $600-a-month health insurance premium jump to $3,000.

The rest of the release details the ways the administration has attempted to lower healthcare costs, such as an executive order to make healthcare pricing be more transparent, an executive order attempting to bring prescription drug prices down and the creation of the Rural Health Transformation Program.

That plan invested $50 billion in rural healthcare across the United States, with Wyoming receiving $205 million in 2026, the first year of the program.

U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., spoke in support of the administration’s move.

“Obamacare is a complete disaster. It has saddled millions of Americans with higher costs and left our healthcare system worse off, not better. After years of failed mismanagement under the Biden administration, President Trump is taking the right step in delivering refunds to the hardworking Americans who got stuck overpaying,” she wrote.

U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., who is the Republican nominee to replace Lummis in the Senate, also supported the decision.

In a statement to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Hageman wrote: “Ensuring constituents’ hard-earned income returns from Washington to Wyoming has been one of my top priorities over my two-term tenure in the House of Representatives. Protecting rural health care has been a particular focus to extend life-saving resources for hard-to-reach residents across our state.

“To that end, along with Senators Barrasso and Lummis, we secured more than $205 million for Wyoming health care through the Rural Health Transformation Program. I am pleased to see the Trump administration doing more to take action and recognize the hardship placed on Wyomingites as a result of a failed mandate attempting to nationalize health care.”

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., echoed the shared sentiment of Hageman and Lummis.

“Obamacare is broken. Many Americans have been charged inflated fees on the Obamacare exchange with nothing to show for it. I’m glad President Trump plans to return that money directly to the people it came from,” Barrasso said. “I will always fight for healthcare that gives people the care they need, from the doctor they choose, at a price they can afford.”

Wyoming currently ranks 49th in affordability and medical care accessibility, according to Healthy Wyoming, and is one of 10 states that have not passed Medicaid expansion, which advocates say would help close the coverage gap. Around 19,000 people live in that gap, where they do not qualify for Medicaid, and do not have enough money to pay for out-of-pocket insurance costs.

Roughly 41,545 people are enrolled in the ACA exchange in Wyoming, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicare Services. It was not immediately clear how many of them would qualify for the $500 checks.

Officials from the Wyoming Department of Health and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming did not provide comment about the president’s announcement before publication time.