Journalists should scrutinize their state legislatures' handling of Medicaid in 2005. Feeling squeezed by the feds, states are caught in a bind. Minnesota Public Radio quoted the state finance commissioner: "Health and human services is growing 20 percent from one biennium to the next. We don't have revenues growing at that rate. And that's a large portion of our budget. And so that's an unsustainable kind of growth in a spending program."

A Star Tribune editorial says that health care cuts made in the 2003 Minnesota state budget didn't save the state very much. Costs that came off the state budget were simply shifted onto someone else.

When is the last time you saw a story on health care cost-shifting in your local news reports?