Do I already need to remind you that a Republican president just enacted one of the largest expansions of Medicaid in the history of the program?

The Republican party is no more eager to cut senior entitlements than is the Democratic Party -- they both use Medicaid and Social Security as political bludgeons, and neither side has made a serious proposal to cut costs.

You can try to turn this into a partisan political debate, but the bottom line is that both sides have a strong incentive to leave these programs alone (they benefit active voters). On the issue of entitlements, the primary practical difference between Republicans and Democrats is that the Republicans have a long history of attacking entitlements for poor people, in order to maintain the illusion that they care about costs.