On WTTW last night, State Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine) once again cited Medicaid reform as a surefire way to plug the state's budget deficit.  He proposed double-checking income "to confirm that you are allowed to have it" and making sure "that we aren't getting people from out of state on Medicaid."  He added, "Gov. Blagojevich and the majority that passed these Medicaid expansions decided that we were going to be the entire nation's health care system. We can't afford it."  Watch (full video here): 

Cracking down on out-of-state and ineligible patients?  This is how we're going to rein in Medicaid costs?  Really?

Also, it's irresponsible to lay the growth in Medicaid eligibility solely at the Democrats' feet.  As we noted yesterday, the biggest expansions actually took place under a Republican administration.

Of course, if the GOP were actually serious about scaling back Medicaid spending, they'd look to the health care reform efforts happening at the national level.  If health care costs are going to drop, that is where it will happen, as the Woodstock Institute's Dory Rand noted in her minority opinion to the Taxpayer Action Board (TAB) report (PDF, page 114):

In general on the issue of Medicaid cost inflation, there is a lack of acknowledgement [in the TAB report] that Medicaid is part of a larger health care system in this country, so that Medicaid cost inflation is largely just an expression of inflation in the larger system. I am told that Medicaid inflation is consistently several points lower than inflation in the larger heath care system of which it is a part (that is, Medicaid liability growth is several points lower every year than the CPI for health care services). Since it seems likely that the entire health care system in this country is headed for reforms aimed at cutting costs (among other things – see President Obama’s comprehensive reform plans, recent public releases from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, and recent release from the U.S. House Education and Commerce Committee), the Board should at least note the fact that one of the main ways to support reduction in Medicaid costs is to fully support the success of the national reform effort. And, regardless of the Board’s policy preferences in the national debate, it should at least note this source of potentially reduced pressure on state funded Medicaid spending in the near future.