| New reporting details Bill Huizenga’s long record voting and advocating for cuts to Social Security and Medicare and defending cuts to Social Security by saying “I’m gonna be ok.”
Huizenga voted five times for bills that would gradually raise the Social Security retirement age and last fall even floated “adjustments” including people “‘voluntarily’ forfeit[ing] their Social Security and Medicare coverage.”
Huizenga also voted seven times for budget resolutions that would have privatized Medicare, and backed nearly $500 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare through his support for the Big, Ugly Bill.
DCCC Spokesperson Katie Smith:
“Bill Huizenga voted to cut Social Security and Medicare, and defended his extreme agenda by saying ‘I’m gonna be ok’ during retirement. It’s no wonder that after years in Washington, Huizenga is wildly out-of-touch with Michiganders.”
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Heartland Signal: Rep. Bill Huizenga has a 15-year record of voting to cut Social Security and Medicare
More than 330,000 people in Bill Huizenga’s district collect Social Security or Medicare. Over 15 years in Congress, he has voted repeatedly to shrink both.
- For more than 15 years in Congress, U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) has repeatedly advocated for and voted to reduce Social Security and Medicare benefits. These votes directly impact more than 330,000 residents in Michigan’s 4th Congressional District who rely on these earned-benefit programs.
- Over 178,000 residents in Huizenga’s district rely on Social Security payments. Between 2011 and 2017, Huizenga voted five times for Republican budget proposals that would gradually raise the Social Security full retirement age to 69.
- When defending proposals to raise the retirement age during a 2011 television interview, Huizenga dismissed personal concerns.
- “I’m 42. I’ll be 106 when these recommendations, if we adopted them right now, would actually come into place. I’m gonna be ok,” Huizenga said.
- More recently, Huizenga has continued floating cuts. During an telephone town hall last October, he argued that “adjustments” were necessary for younger generations and suggested establishing a mechanism where high-earning individuals could “voluntarily” forfeit their Social Security and Medicare coverage.
- The congressman’s record on Medicare reflects a similar pattern. There are 166,213 Medicare beneficiaries in his district. Between 2011 and 2017, Huizenga voted seven times for House budget resolutions that sought to privatize Medicare by transforming it into a “premium support” voucher system.
- Senior advocacy groups, including the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, warned that converting Medicare into a voucher program would send traditional Medicare into a “death spiral.” Under voucher proposals, private insurers could target healthier retirees, leaving traditional Medicare with older, sicker beneficiaries and drive premiums out of reach.
- Huizenga backed further spending reductions in 2025 by voting twice for the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (HR 1). The Congressional Budget Office projected that the legislation could force nearly $500 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare beginning this year. During a town hall following the vote, Huizenga said that future generations will have to make “adjustments.”
- “My kids now, this is going to be the first generation that literally could be alive long enough to be retired as long as they worked. Okay, the system was never built for that,” Huizenga said last October. “And they actually have time to make some adjustments, whether it’s adjustments in their qualifications, or in how long they’re going to work. This is the realities of what we have to deal with. And again, we’ve got to have the courage to have the conversation.”
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