GOP Senate Candidates Wrangle Over Whether Medicare Is Constitutional

Two GOP candidates seeking to dislodge U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill in (D-MO) in the 2012 race, are in a spat over the constitutionality of Medicare.

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), running for the U.S. Senate, gained attention last weekend with comments he made in Fulton, MO. Akin was quoted in the Columbia Daily Tribune saying that he doesn’t “find in the Constitution that it is the job of the government to provide health care.” Akin added as a practical matter, Medicare can’t be repealed.

“Now people have contributed their money to it. Now people are dependent on it,” Akin told Tribune reporter Rudi Keller. “Now we have an obligation, and we are between a rock and a hard place on it. I want to manage it to give people who depend on it the best quality health care we can.”

The Missouri Democratic Party took Akin to task for his comments, as did one of Akin’s rivals in the GOP primary, former Missiouri state Treasurer Sarah Steelman.

In a statement, Steelman said she "believes Medicare and Social Security to be constitutional.” She also took a shot at Akin for initially voting for an expansion to Medicare before ultimately voting against it.

“My question to Congressman Akin is: If he thinks Medicare is unconstitutional, why hasn't he done anything in his 12 years in Congress to fight it or challenge it?” Steelman said.

In perhaps a preview of debate over Medicare in the 2012 race for Missouri's U.S. Senate seat, Missouri Democratic Party spokeswoman Caitlin Legacki said recently: "When more than one million Missouri seniors rely on Medicare, voters deserve to know whether their Senate candidates want to get rid of this critical safety net.”

Steelman went on to question Akin's record.

“And why has he voted for Medicare if it's unconstitutional? When he had the chance to vote against Medicare Part D—the prescription drug program—first he voted for it, then he voted against it. That's the trouble with Washington politicians—they want to have it all ways and cover their tracks. That's why our country is in such a mess today,” Steelman said.

Akin’s initial vote on Medicare Part D was the subject of a Kansas City Star story released earlier this year. Akin told the Star’s Steve Kraske that he wanted to give Republican leaders “the opportunity” to improve the bill in the Senate. He eventually voted against the final version of the legislation, which passed and was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

Asked why she thought Medicare and Social Security were constitutional, Steelman responded that “courts have upheld Congress' efforts to craft safety nets under the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution.”

Politico’s Dave Catanese noted, Steelman questioned Medicare’s constitutionality seven months earlier.

About the 2009 federal health care reform measure, Steelman said: “Congress and President Obama shoved this clearly unconstitutional bill down everyone's throats.”

“The administration now is trying to survive the legal challenges, relying on the commerce clause to justify government requiring Americans to buy a private product,” Steelman said. “This is a radical notion that flies in the face of everything this nation's over-200-year-constitutional jurisprudence stands for. If America and our Constitution stand for anything, they stand for the principle that you and I can decide whether and what we want to buy in the private marketplace and cannot be punished if we don't buy what President Barack Obama and Senator Claire McCaskill dictate we buy. In the Senate, I'd filibuster an unconstitutional power grab like Obamacare until I dropped from exhaustion. People are sick of go-along, get-along politicians who are tepid in their opposition, vote no, and then hide under their desks until the next election."

Steve Taylor, a spokesman for Akin, said in an email to Patch that the “General Welfare clause” has been used “to authorize an ever increasing array of government programs and spending.”

“That said, the thrust of Congressman Akin’s statement was twofold,” Taylor said. “First that the provision of health care was not an enumerated power of the federal government, and second, that in general, the less the federal government is charged with providing the less citizens are burdened by bureaucracy and taxes.”

Taylor added that although Akin voted against the final version of the prescription drug benefit and the 2009 federal health care reform measure, Akin “believes in upholding the promises of Medicare and Social Security to the elderly.”

“That is why, given the dire financial crises these programs face, he believes some reforms are needed,” Taylor said. “That said, the Congressman does not support changing any of the benefits for those who are at or near retirement.”