What To Know About Those $200 Drug Cards President Trump Promised

President Trump promised this week to send cards worth $200 to seniors to help them pay for their prescription drugs, but it's unclear how he will be able to pull it off — or how legal it is.

If he can, that's $6.6 billion to a key voting bloc weeks before Election Day.

"Under my plan, 33 million Medicare beneficiaries will soon receive a card in the mail containing $200 that they can use to help pay for prescription drugs," Trump told a crowd in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday. "Nobody has seen this before. These cards are incredible. The cards will be mailed out in coming weeks."

Although anything involving the Treasury usually needs congressional approval, the White House doesn't plan to go that route.

Instead, officials say the White House plans to use a section of the Social Security Act that allows Medicare to test out new programs aimed at saving money, for example, to see whether they work. Called "demonstrations," these are usually proposed by state governments, agency staff, Congress or the private sector. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is tasked with evaluating and approving them.