North Carolina and Alabama have joined a growing number of states establishing programs that allow the release of dying or infirm prisoners to cut prison system health care costs.
Alabama’s law goes into effect Sept. 1. It will allow inmates who are permanently incapacitated or terminally ill to be furloughed. It will also allow for the release of inmates 55 or older who have life-threatening illnesses. About 125 of the state’s 25,000 inmates will be eligible, Alabama Prisons Commissioner Richard Allen said.
Inmates considered for parole will be “the frailest of the frail and sickest of the sick,” Allen said.
North Carolina’s legislation took effect June 10. Authorities are still assessing policies and procedures, state prisons system spokesman Keith Acree said.
[i]Allen said inmates would go to stay with relatives or be placed in hospice care or admitted to hospitals depending on their condition and level of care needed.
“Early release of terminal or infirm inmates without a doubt saves tremendous amounts of tax dollars,” McCuan said. “The taxpayer simply can’t afford to pay exploding end-of-life health care costs.”[/i]
Oh, yeah, just throw them out on the streets! Many if not all of these inmates are not eligible for health care, especially if they have a pre-existing condition.
And the burden on their relatives? Absurd! Most of the relatives of inmates come from below poverty levels (as most of the inmates were in that condition before arrest, which is why some studies say they turned to a life of crime in the first place).
Or on the private health care systems? Hospitals are reeling now from the enforced care given to illegal aliens. Add to that the prision population and we will soon have a genuine health care crisis. What difference does it make if they are treated in a prision hospital or sent to a community hospital? The taxpayer still gets charged in the long run. At least the prision won’t be forced to close down for lack of payments.
By the way, this is the same governmental systems that would be administering Universal Health Care. And probably about how they would treat us, too.
Cost shifting — we’re just playing “hot potato” with treatment and care of the seriously ill, such as the 15 to 20% of school budgets that are now going to care for seriously disabled kids. Everyone agrees we should care for these folk as a compassionate society, but we don’t want to be honest about where and how the expense is registered.
Is it really cheaper to care for these unfortunates outside of an institutional setting, or is this another case of de-institutionalization, where we get people out of big mean awful grim buildings and . . . toss ’em on the streets and expect village and county police and charity to manage off-meds schizophrenia, end-stage syphilis, and the like.
And meanwhile the savings to the state budget go . . . not to local communities, that’s for sure.
The rule, rather than the exception, is that prisoners who are injured or become ill IN CUSTODY, are brought to the hospital, released on their own recognizance, and subsequently re-arrested when they have completed their treatment. That way, these people, who are the only segment of society with an absolute right to health care, are burdened with the entire cost of their hospitalization, and the doctors who treat them are just S.O.L. The companies such as C.M.S who are paid to provide the care or (pay to have it provided), would rather keep the money.
What about Medicare and Medicaid? Here in CT, they would be eligible for Husky Health Care. Most states have state funded medical insurance for the poor. By state funded, of course, I mean tax payer funded.
I would think that the total care costs to tax payers for released inmates would drop significantly because the food, shelter, and security would no longer be the responsibility of the state. The state would simply be paying for their terminal care, or the federal government would.
You don’t even have to be a citizen to get taxpayer funded health care. Just call 911 and off you go to the emergency room. Of course, everyone that does pay is paying about 20% extra on their medical bills to fund this “free” medical care for others.
Ain’t socialism grand?
Umm, no. it’s actually called “theft of services”. These poor guys have no hope of ever paying for their medical care. They may be medicaid elegible, but by and large they don’t actually have medicaid because they were “covered” under the penal plan until they got dumped. The hospitals just write it off, but the physicians can’t. They provide the best care possible with no hope of remuneration and full potential for liability. It’s not fair.
Reminds me of the “good old days” when local public assistance programs would pay people on assistance to move to NYC. They would buy them a bus ticket and put a few bucks in their pockets and pass them off to someone else’s tab.
Isn’t Denver doing that now to prepare for the Democratic National Convention?
I remember a few years ago a guy running for sheriff in Duval County (Jacksonville) made part of his platform that he’d instruct the police to pick up the homeless and drop them off at the St. John’s county line, putting them in the swank village of Ponte Vedra. He lost by a mile, but was entertaining to listen to on the radio since I knew he’d loose. Rather like Buford T. Justice from Smokey and the Bandit.