President Donald Trump’s gimmicky $500 Affordable Care Act refund checks are arriving in the homes of nearly a million Americans. The accompanying letters transform a modest payment into a blizzard of Trumpian disinformation, presenting a cynical political maneuver as proof of presidential populism.

The letters tell recipients, “For years, the Biden Administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov. That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the Government, and now, I am returning it to you!” The message is designed to make Trump look like the rescuer of Americans supposedly cheated by his predecessor.

Recipients are told that the refund is intended for Americans who do not receive subsidies to help pay for their coverage. The letter adds, “You have paid into this flawed System, and now you are finally getting something back.”

That framing contains a sliver of truth wrapped in a much larger deception. Trump did use a surplus that existed before his second term, but there is no evidence supporting his allegation that the money resulted from “gross mismanagement” by President Joe Biden.

The checks are being financed through a government fund supported by fees from health insurance companies. That fund pays for operations of the ACA marketplace, including marketing, outreach and assistance with enrollment, while insurers pass at least part of those fees to customers through higher premiums.

Trump’s story conveniently skips over where the surplus may have originated. Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF, told The Associated Press that the money might have been collected during Trump’s own first term.

The Associated Press reported, “Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF, said it’s entirely possible that the funds Trump has promised came from fees collected during Trump’s first term.” That possibility badly complicates Trump’s attempt to pin the surplus on Biden.

The same report continued, “His first administration collected more user fees from insurers than it spent, resulting in an estimated $1 billion in unspent funds, according to KFF analysis.” In other words, Trump could be returning money that accumulated partly because of decisions made during his own administration.

During his first term, Trump sharply reduced spending on efforts intended to make the ACA marketplace more accessible to the public. The existence of unspent money in a government account does not, by itself, prove the misconduct that Trump’s letter invites recipients to imagine.

Even without evidence of wrongdoing, Trump depicts the payment as his heroic intervention against Biden and a shadowy “System.” It is a familiar propaganda formula: invent a villain, claim sole credit for delivering relief and hope the check distracts recipients from the wider record.

The most brazen deception is how the checks divert attention from the Republican Party’s role in rising health insurance premiums. The GOP refused to extend ACA subsidies last year, leaving the people eligible for these $500 payments facing premium increases that often amount to thousands of dollars.

For many recipients, Trump’s check will not cover even one month of the difference in their health insurance costs. Meanwhile, roughly 3 million people who were priced out of ACA plans because the subsidies lapsed are not eligible to receive the checks at all.

The payment is not a meaningful answer to the financial damage. As Zeeshan Aleem previously wrote, the checks are “waving the idea of free cash for Americans like a parent might dangle a toy in front of an unhappy infant, hoping that for just a brief moment they will be transfixed, with no memory of the past or ability to imagine the future.”

Trump claims in his letter that he is “fighting to put the American people FIRST,” but this $500 maneuver cannot erase higher healthcare costs. The checks instead serve as a cynical attempt to entice Americans who may not understand Trump’s healthcare policy record into supporting the GOP.

The administration’s pitch depends on recipients seeing a check and ignoring everything surrounding it. Trump gets to pose as the benefactor, Biden gets blamed without evidence and Americans confronting far larger insurance bills are expected to feel grateful for a payment that may barely touch one month’s increase.