Treasury checks to Medicare and Obamacare enrollees land weeks before the midterms, drawing Hatch Act questions

Checks from the U.S. Treasury, each accompanied by a letter from President Trump, are arriving in mailboxes across the country just weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and ethics experts say the timing raises legal questions.

Last week the administration mailed $500 checks to certain people who buy insurance through Healthcare.gov. It also announced that $90 checks will go to about 20 million people enrolled in Medicare.

Who gets the money

The $500 checks went only to marketplace customers in the 30 states that use Healthcare.gov who earn more than about $64,000 a year as individuals, too much to qualify for subsidies. Those are the people likely hit hardest when Congress let the enhanced premium help created under President Joe Biden expire.

The $90 checks are going to certain people in traditional Medicare Part B. People enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans run by private insurers will not get them.

The marketplace money comes from fees insurers pay to sell plans on the exchange; the Medicare money comes from a general improvement fund. Neither fund has been used for direct payments to enrollees before.

'Just nothing'

Ellen Allen, who runs a small nonprofit called West Virginians for Affordable Health Care, received one of the $500 checks at her home near Charleston on Monday. She has a serious eye condition and paid $1,967 a month in premiums from January through August, drawing on retirement savings, before turning 65 and switching to Medicare.

She called the checks a "political stunt." Of the coming $90 payment, she said, "that's just nothing. ... People are hurting. People are feeling the cost of healthcare all year long. If they wanted to do something meaningful, they would work on affordable healthcare instead of just sending out checks every now and then."

Legal questions

The letters tout the administration's health policies and criticize the Biden administration. "This reads like electioneering," said Kathleen Clark, a professor of legal and governmental ethics at Washington University law school in St. Louis. She said it could violate the Hatch Act, which bars using federal power and money to influence partisan elections, and may be a use of funds Congress never authorized.

The White House did not directly answer questions about the Hatch Act. "This is an out-of-touch criticism," spokeswoman Allison Schuster said. "Americans were overcharged for the operation of the Obamacare exchange, and President Trump returned their hard-earned money."

Joseph Antos, a senior fellow emeritus at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, noted some Republicans have long wanted to give money directly to people rather than insurers, but said these checks are unrelated to that effort, since nothing requires recipients to spend them on health care. "From the perspective of the average senior citizen, when they get a $90 check, it's money," he said.

With health care costs ranking among voters' top worries, both parties are betting the issue will matter on Election Day.