Two faces of Rand Paul

Opinion: June 19, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: If there’s one thing tea party favorite Rand Paul hates, it’s government handouts.

Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security — he’s against them. That platform helped him win last month’s Republican primary in Kentucky for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Jim Bunning.

On the campaign trail, Paul likes to say that the biggest problem we face is rising debt. He promises to radically cut government spending.

When he’s not running for U.S. Senate, Paul is an eye doctor in rural Kentucky, a poor state with higher-than-average enrollment in Medicare and Medicaid.

You might think that Paul would, as a matter of principle, refuse to accept Medicare and Medicaid payments. You might think that, but you would be wrong.

Paul’s campaign manager clarified the issue for The Associated Press this week. Refusing to accept payments from those two government programs would “penalize his older patients and his poor patients.”

Paul wouldn’t want to penalize them like that. Far better to simply take away their health insurance.

Whoops. Check that. His campaign manager says Paul opposes cutting benefits for current Medicare patients.

So, just to be clear, Paul hates government handouts. But not enough to stop taking them.