Was Medicare Robbed $700 Billion to Pay for Obamacare?

When talking about his plans for Social Security and Medicare, Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) stated that Congress should not be “talking about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare that was robbed $700 billion dollars to pay for Obamacare.”

This claim is similar to one that Mitt Romney made in the 2012 election about Medicare. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) enacted savings estimated at that time of $716 billion to the Medicare program over ten years (now estimated at $800 billion), which was used to pay for some of the cost of the new law under pay-as-you-go budget scoring conventions. However, there was no reduction in the amount of money going towards paying for Medicare; rather, the law reduced the amount that Medicare spends. In fact, Medicare payroll tax revenues increased, increasing the amount that could be spent. Partially as a result these changes, the Medicare Trust Fund is expected to be solvent through 2030, 13 years longer than projected before the 2010 law was passed.

Ruling: It's Complicated