The White House said the one-time payments would be drawn from a fund set up to improve Medicare.
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President Donald Trump announced plans to send $90 payments to more than 20 million older Americans, with Trump tying the initiative to his broader push to lower health care costs.
The money would be drawn from about $2 billion set aside to improve Medicare’s hospital and medical insurance programs, which has not been used for that purpose since the initiative’s inception in 2008, administration officials said Saturday. Both parties have used the money, held in the Medicare Improvement Fund, in congressional budget maneuvers.
“Under our leadership, we’re finally going to use the Medicare Improvement Fund to do what it was designed and intended to do: Help America’s seniors,” Trump said in a video released by the White House on Saturday.
Trump’s move caught congressional offices in both parties by surprise, according to three aides, and threatens to complicate negotiations over end-of-session legislation.
“That money was supposed to be used to offset health extenders this year,” said a GOP congressional aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private funding talks. Lawmakers anticipated dipping into the fund to help over several programs, said the aide, including the Community Health Center Fund, the National Health Service Corps, the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program and several special diabetes programs.
The frustrations over Trump’s abrupt announcement could prompt lawmakers to delay some of the president’s nominations in response, the aide said.
The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Medicare Improvement Fund, did not respond to questions about the administration’s legal authority to issue the payments.
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The payments will be sent to most Medicare Part B enrollees, with many of them receiving a $90 direct deposit this month, the White House said. Others will receive a check sent to the address on file with Medicare.
Trump’s announcement follows his other pledges to send money to Americans ahead of November’s midterm elections, including his plan to send $500 Affordable Care Act refund checks to nearly 1 million people in 30 states. The administration began sending those checks this week, alongside a letter touting his record.
Democrats have called the moves a stunt and questioned the legality of dipping into government accounts to send payments to Americans.
“This is another desperate attempt by a failed president to escape Americans’ revulsion with his failed agenda, amounting to one tank of Trump-inflated gas,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (Oregon), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which helps oversee the Medicare program.
Trump has floated multiple proposals to send dividends to Americans during his second term, but some of them have not materialized. In February 2025, he said his administration was considering a proposal to give 20 percent of savings from the controversial DOGE government cost-cutting effort to Americans. That proposal would have delivered roughly $5,000 to each of the roughly 79 million households in which residents pay federal income tax.
The president said Friday night that the $90 payments were proof that he would follow through with his pledge to send a $5,000 dividend to every American adult if Republicans retain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections — a pledge that has raised broad questions about its legality and funding.
“Because I delivered on this very important issue for the American People, they can also rest assured the highly popular $5,000 Trump Dividend will be distributed to every U.S. Citizen if, and when, the Republicans win the Midterm Elections!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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