President Obama and his campaign have offered a series of defenses for the roughly $700 billion in Medicare cuts he enacted to help finance his $1.7 trillion national health care law. To summarize, they have argued that 1) the cuts only deal with overpayments to private insurers and providers, 2) they don’t affect benefits, and 3) the cuts extend the solvency of Medicare. Not one of these claims holds up under scrutiny.

It’s true that a lot of the cuts in the health care law come out of Medicare Advantage, which is the part of Medicare that allows beneficiaries to buy into privately administered health care plans. Obama and his defenders speak as if Medicare Advantage doesn’t count as Medicare, but as the official website states, “A Medicare Advantage Plan (like an HMO or PPO) is another Medicare health plan choice you may have as part of Medicare.” Last year, 11.5 million Americans, or about a quarter of all Medicare beneficiaries, were enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.