Reihan makes sense:
Did Democrats object to the Republican Medicare proposal on the grounds that it was unfunded, or on the grounds that it wasn't sufficiently generous? My sense is that the opposition centered on the notion that it was not sufficiently generous and that the Medicare Advantage plans represented a giveaway to private insurers. Democrats who suggested that we should only expand Medicare if we also increased the payroll tax or pursued some other revenue-enhancing measure deserve praise for their consistency. Those who didn't deserve as much blame as the Republicans who failed to consider the long-term costs.
Absolutely. But it remains true that the biggest entitlement recently enacted was by a Republican president and Congress and no one even faintly proposed a way to pay for it.