Michigan Republican Mike Rogers is not calling for cuts to Medicare and Social Security

Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, is facing scrutiny over his past Congressional record and accusations that he plans to cut Medicare and Social Security if elected.

The United Auto Workers, an influential union that represents Michigan auto workers, released an ad on Facebook and Instagram targeting Rogers, arguing he poses a danger to Michigan workers and retirees. The UAW has endorsed Democrats for federal office, including Rogers’ Democratic opponent, Rep. Elissa Slotkin.

Rogers and Slotkin are competing for the open Senate seat left by retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

"Mike Rogers wants to cut Medicare and Social Security, putting our retirement security at risk," the ad said. 

Social Security and Medicare attacks are perennial campaign issues. Other Senate candidates, and former President Donald Trump, have faced accusations that they want to cut the programs’ funding. 

Rogers’ positions are not as clear-cut as the UAW makes them out to be. We reached out to the union for comment, but received no response.

Rogers has not called for cutting Medicare or Social Security. He has said during this Senate campaign that he wants to strengthen the programs and protect their solvency. Although he has ruled out benefit cuts and raising the retirement age, Rogers has not said what policies he would support to preserve the programs. 

When he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2015, Rogers voted for four budget resolutions based on a plan that called to change Medicare benefits and raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 over time. In 2023, when he briefly considered a presidential bid, Rogers floated the idea of raising the Social Security retirement age, but supported no specific policy.

Without changes that either increase the flow of money into Social Security and Medicare or reduce their costs, their funding is likely to run out in a little more than a decade, according to the programs’ latest annual reports.

Medicare benefits could be reduced by 11% and Social Security benefits could be reduced by 17% if the trust funds are depleted, the reports said.

To support its claim that Rogers wants to cut Medicare and Social Security, the UAW ad points to Rogers’ vote for a 2011 Republican budget resolution by then-Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. That resolution, and others like it that Rogers backed, proposed dramatically changing Medicare, but none became law.  

The budget resolution, based on Ryan’s "Path to Prosperity" framework, called for replacing traditional Medicare for future retirees with a "premium support" system in which the government would pay private health insurers a defined amount to subsidize the cost of health insurance plans for Medicare beneficiaries.

Ryan’s plan also called for raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, although that was not specifically spelled out in the legislation. Both changes would be phased in over many years.

The premium support system was designed to bring down Medicare’s cost to the federal government, so, in that sense, it represented a potential cut to the program’s budget. 

Whether that would have raised beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket costs would have depended on the law’s specifics and how insurance companies would have competed for beneficiaries’ payments, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. But at least some beneficiaries would have seen reduced benefits and higher out-of-pocket costs, KFF reported. 

In a 2011 brief outlining different premium support plan proposals, KFF said beneficiaries would likely initially see increased out-of-pocket costs for Medicare-covered services compared with existing law. If competition failed to lower premium growth and health care costs, the brief said, costs to beneficiaries would continue to rise. Beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket costs would also depend on where those beneficiaries lived and how much they earned.

The budget resolutions proposed no specific changes to Social Security. They called for a process for the president and congressional leaders to propose legislation to restore funding if the trust fund’s insolvency was forecast. 

Rogers also said he was open to changing Social Security’s retirement age during a New Hampshire town hall last year when he was exploring a run for president. Rogers said lawmakers will need to rethink "what work looks like and what retirement looks like" for young people, and said "every option’s going to have to be on the table." Rogers did not call for cuts or say he supported any specific policy.

Featured Fact-check

Bob Casey

stated on October 10, 2024 in a TV ad

To pay for extending the Trump tax cuts, Dave McCormick has “made clear he’ll slash your Medicare and Social Security, and cut Medicaid for nursing home care.”

"Doesn’t mean that’s the right answer, but it means we have to talk about it," he said. 

Although Rogers supported changing Medicare and considered changing Social Security in the past, he’s not campaigning on those policies now.

In debates and other appearances, Rogers has said he will work to preserve Social Security and Medicare. He has not supported specific policies. In a debate with Slotkin this month, Rogers said Congress should set up a bipartisan commission to address Medicare and Social Security’s funding shortfalls. 

"If we are ever going to solve Social Security, we’re going to have a bipartisan commission that actually sits down and goes through the numbers and puts their party politics on the outside, and worries about the seniors on the inside," Rogers said during the Oct. 14 debate. 

We asked Rogers’ spokesperson, Chris Gustafson, what policies Rogers would support if such a committee were formed. Gustafson said Rogers does not support cutting benefits or raising the retirement age, but he did not offer alternative policies. Gustafson said Rogers supports a commission to "address the programs while protecting the benefits that Americans have earned." 

On Medicare, Rogers has also sworn off cutting benefits for recipients. During an Oct. 8 debate, Rogers said there are ways to cut Medicare costs without reducing benefits. He did not detail those ways, but said addressing "Medicare transparency" is a way to lower costs. 

Rogers supports former President Donald Trump’s proposals to eliminate income taxes on Social Security income and on tips. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found in an analysis that Trump’s tax proposals would accelerate Social Security’s funding shortfall and result in insolvency three years sooner than current projections. 

A UAW ad said Rogers "wants to cut Medicare and Social Security."

Rogers has said the opposite as he’s campaigned for Senate. He said he wants to protect the entitlement programs and that he would not support cutting benefits or raising the retirement age. He said Congress should convene a committee to address Social Security’s solvency. He did not endorse any specific policies. 

More than a decade ago, Rogers supported a plan that called for changing Medicare benefits and raising the Medicare eligibility age. Whether those proposed changes would have led to cuts for beneficiaries would have depended on several factors. And it is not a policy Rogers is campaigning on now. 

We rate the claim False.