Despite endorsing Paul Ryan’s proposal to maintain Obamacare’s $716 billion in Medicare cuts and reduce overall Medicare spending from 7 percent of GDP to 3.5 percent by 2023, Mitt Romney has announced that he would restore the ACA’s reductions — and avoid future Medicare reductions.

“My commitment is, if I become President, I’m going to restore that $716 billion to the Medicare trust fund so that current seniors can know that the trust fund is not being raided and get Medicare on track to be solvent long-term on a permanent basis,” Romney told CBS on Wednesday morning. But in replenishing the funds, Romney would actually be making the program worse off, not better.

The Obamacare savings slow the growth of Medicare over the next decade by, in part: eliminating overpayments to private insurers in Medicare Advantage, reforming provider payments to encourage greater efficiency, tying reimbursements to improvements in economic productivity, and reducing fraud and abuse. The law does not impact patient benefits. CMS offers a partial breakdown:

As a result of these savings, “growth in spending will be restrained” and the life of the Medicare trust fund is expanded by eight years, the government estimates. Sixteen million seniors are also benefiting from the savings by receiving preventive benefits without deductibles or co-pays and saving more than $3.9 billion on prescription drugs.

Should Romney restore the $716 billion — and unless he institutes other yet to be specified reforms — we would move back to the old system of overpaying private insurers and providers. He’d be re-inserting inefficiency back into the system, jeopardizing the benefits that seniors are currently enjoying, and shrinking the solvency of the Medicare trust fund from 2024 under current law to 2016.

“All of the demonstration and pilot programs aimed at payment and delivery system reform would also be eliminated,” Steve Zuckerman of the Urban Institute told ThinkProgress. “Definitely, the 8 year extension in the life of the Medicare HI trust fund would be gone.”

He added, “If I could ask Romney-Ryan one question on this topic it would be: After you repeal the ACA and restore the cuts in Medicare payments, would you then reinstate the Medicare cuts as part of your own budget plan?”

The Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the Medicaid program would provide states with federal funds to help insure millions of Americans who currently can’t afford coverage, especially the low-income Americans whose annual earnings are slightly above the cut-off to qualify for Medicaid in their state. Despite the significant financial benefits for the states that choose to accept the Medicare expansion, Republican governors across the country are choosing to reject the federal funds — leaving some states with impossibly low Medicaid thresholds that remain far below the current poverty line.

Under the current program, states have varying income requirements for Medicaid eligibility. Thirty three states currently limit coverage to income levels below the federal poverty line, and 17 of those states will only cover families who are bringing in less than half of the income at the federal poverty level. In five states — Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, and Texas — a family of three with an annual income over $5,000 makes too much money to receive any Medicaid assistance. ThinkProgress examined the national disparities:

Obamacare establishes a new eligibility level for Medicaid above the current poverty line of $18,530 for a working family of three. Effective in 2014, the expansion will allow families who make up to $26,344 to be eligible for coverage under the program. That would make a huge difference for low-income working families in states like Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana who are not currently considered poor enough to qualify despite the fact that they are living in poverty by federal standards. However, those states’ Republican governors are choosing to deny their state’s low-income residents health care coverage.

If governors reject the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, the families whose income falls between the federal poverty line and the new $26,344 income level may receive subsidies to help them participate in the health insurance exchanges that will be set up in 2014. But the estimated 11 million families who fall under the poverty line but above their state’s Medicaid eligibility line will be left in the cold, unable to receive either Medicaid benefits or subsidies.

GOP governors may be relying on Gov. Rick Perry’s (R-TX) strategy and simply pretending that their uninsured state residents don’t exist. However, if some families who scrape by on just $5,000 a year remain ineligible for Medicaid because their governors reject Obamacare, the reality is worth considering.