In 2010, the GOP steamrolled to its House majority by scaring the bejesus out of seniors about $716 billion in Obamacare cuts to Medicare. Three years later, House and Senate Republicans are repeating their tried and untrue talking point. Untrue, that is, not just because the savings from private Medicare Advantage insurers and providers do not constitute cuts to core Medicare benefits. Just as important, those exact same savings are a central feature of the Paul Ryan House GOP budget 95 percent of Congressional Republicans voted for three years in a row.

Nevertheless, two weeks after the House GOP published its anti-Obamacare playbook, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is similarly resurrecting the same deceptive attack to target Democratic candidates in 12 states. As NRSC spokesman Brad Dayspring put it:

"By voting for ObamaCare, Democrats like Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu and Mark Begich cut $717 billion from Medicare -- including $154 billion from Medicare Advantage -- which will hurt seniors."

But just in the 2010 and 2012 elections, Republicans who want to repeal, delay, defund or otherwise damage the Affordable Care Act won't own up to the glaring contradiction in the Medicare demagoguery. They may hate what the ACA spends money on, but they love every dollar it raises from savings and new taxes.
In September, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) called Congressional Republicans to task for precisely that hoax:

[House Republicans] have to explain to the American people how they voted for a budget that includes all of the Medicare savings from ObamaCare, that includes the same level of revenue generated from ObamaCare and, in fact, would not even balance in 10 years, if not for the Affordable Care Act.

Van Hollen was actually giving the Republicans too much credit. Their budget, as we'll see below, doesn't balance in 10 years. But it does indeed count on all of the cost savings and new tax revenue that more than pay for the Affordable Care Act.
That's exactly what that 95 percent of House and Senate Republicans voted for when they blessed Paul Ryan's budget in 2011, 2012 and 2013. While repealing Obamacare, slashing Medicaid funding by a third and leaving roughly 38 million more people uninsured, the Ryan budget still runs up trillions in new red ink thanks to its massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy. Paul Ryan's blueprint does not, as Republicans claim, balance in 10 year because it does not identify a single tax break it will close to fill the gaping hole left by almost $5 trillion in tax cuts. And yet, the Ryan plan still assumes every single dollar in revenue generated to fund the Affordable Care Act. The $716 billion in savings from Medicare providers, the capital gains and Medicare payroll tax surcharges for households earning over $250,000 a year and other new revenue raisers are all still in there. As Ezra Klein explained "Paul Ryan's love-hate relationship with Obamacare" in March:

Every Ryan budget since the passage of Obamacare has assumed the repeal of Obamacare. Kinda. Ryan's version of repeal means getting rid of all the parts that spend money to give people health insurance but keeping the tax increases and the Medicare cuts that pays for that health insurance, as without those policies, it is very, very difficult for Ryan to hit his deficit-reduction targets.

Not just difficult, but virtually impossible. Obamacare, as the CBO has repeatedly projected, reduces the national debt over the next decade. Its revenue exceeds its spending by an estimated $109 billion over the next 10 years. But without the revenue-raising provisions from Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, Paul Ryan and his GOP would have to plug a $1 trillion hole in their budget.
The GOP hypocrisy doesn't end there. After all, the Ryan budget doesn't just pocket that $716 billion in Medicare savings to help fund its massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy. As it turns out, his blueprint turns the Medicare system for 49 million seniors into an underfunded voucher scheme that will dramatically shift health care costs onto the future elderly. As ThinkProgress explained during the 2012 campaign:

Seniors currently under the age of 55 could use their government contribution to purchase insurance from an exchange of private plans or--unlike Ryan's original budget--traditional fee-for-service Medicare...
But the budget does not take sufficient precautions to prevent insurers from cherry-picking the healthiest beneficiaries from traditional Medicare and leaving sicker applicants to the government. As a result, traditional Medicare costs could skyrocket, forcing even more seniors out of the government program. The budget also adopts a per capita cost cap of GDP growth plus 0.5 percent, without specifying how it would enforce it. This makes it likely that the cap would limit the government contribution provided to beneficiaries and since the proposed growth rate is much slower than the projected growth in health care costs, CBO estimates that new beneficiaries could pay up to $2,200 more by 2030 and up to $8,000 more by 2050. Finally, the budget would also raise Medicare's age of eligibility to 67.

Those are the real cuts in Medicare benefits. And Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell and 95 percent of Republicans on Capitol Hill voted for them in 2011. And 2012. And 2013.