Protecting Social Security and Medicare
What they say
His campaign lists protecting seniors' Social Security and Medicare among what putting America and Michigan first means.
“That means bringing manufacturing jobs back home, lowering the cost of gas, groceries, & prescription drugs, protecting seniors’ social security & medicare, and setting our kids up for success by prioritizing education not indoctrination.”
What the record shows ·
In 2001 he sponsored the Social Security Lock-box Act (H.R. 373), which would have created a budget point of order against spending the Social Security trust fund's surplus, and the Social Security Protection Act (H.R. 2865), which would have required cuts in non-defense discretionary spending equal to any 2001 deficit; neither left committee. He voted Yea when the House passed another member's lock-box bill, H.R. 2, 407 to 2 on February 13, 2001 (Roll Call 13); it did not become law. He cosponsored bills in 2001 and 2003 (H.R. 122 and H.R. 434) to repeal the second, 85 per cent tier of income tax on Social Security benefits; neither left committee. He voted for two laws that changed the programs. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (Public Law 108-173) added the Part D prescription drug benefit; he voted Aye on passage on June 27, 2003 (Roll Call 332) and Yea on the conference report on November 22, 2003 (Roll Call 669). The Social Security Protection Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-203), whose first title is headed "Protection of Beneficiaries", had his Aye on passage on April 2, 2003 (Roll Call 102) and his Yea on the final version on February 11, 2004 (Roll Call 23). On April 15, 2011 he voted Yea on the House budget resolution for fiscal 2012 (Roll Call 277). Its Medicare section kept current benefits for those in and near retirement "without changes", and assumed that for future generations Medicare would be reformed to provide a premium support payment and a choice of guaranteed coverage options. The Senate voted 40 to 57 against taking it up (Record Vote 77, May 25, 2011). He voted Yea on the House's next three budget resolutions, for fiscal 2013, 2014 and 2015 (Roll Call 151 of 2012, 88 of 2013 and 177 of 2014), each of which assumed the same: current benefits preserved for those in or near retirement and premium support for future generations. A budget resolution does not become law. He voted No on the Affordable Care Act, which also changed Medicare, on March 21, 2010 (Roll Call 165), and Aye on repealing it on January 19, 2011 (Roll Call 14).
Limit: The claim is a promise about what he would do as a senator, and the record is a House record that ended in 2015. It runs both ways. The Social Security bills he sponsored, and the repeal of the tax on benefits he cosponsored, never became law, but he voted for two laws that changed the programs, one of which added Medicare's prescription drug benefit. He also voted for four House budget resolutions that kept current benefits for those in or near retirement and assumed premium support for future beneficiaries; a budget resolution is a plan, not a law. Whether premium support for future beneficiaries counts as protecting Medicare is a policy judgment this site does not make; the record shows what he sponsored and a selection of his votes, not every vote he cast on these programs. His cosponsored bills were searched by title; the many Medicare provider-payment bills among them are not listed here.