California Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration is sharply at odds with inmate advocates and a federal receiver over the future of the prison medical system, reports the Los Angeles Times. State officials told a federal judge they’re ready to take back control of the medical system in the next 30 days. The receiver said he should remain in charge until at least early 2014.
The Brown administration said prison health care has been “wholly transformed” in recent years. In addition, officials said, the ongoing reduction in the inmate population -- the result of a separate court order -- has made it easier to provide better medical care because prisons are less crowded. The inmate advocates who originally sued the state over poor medical care said the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation still lacks the will, resources and leadership to prevent the system from backsliding. Receiver J. Clark Kelso said his control should not be ended until more improvements have been made. That includes lowering the inmate population to court-ordered limits, finishing a new medical facility, and making headway on other construction projects.
Read full entry »As California prepares to resume control of inmate medical care, it must find ways to reduce costs that are triple the national average, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said Thursday, according to the Associated Press. The federal receivership that has been in place since 2006 has greatly improved the medical care of state prison inmates but also has caused costs to soar, according to the report. California spends $16,000 per inmate for health care services, compared to an average of $5,000 in other states.
The analysis was released less than two weeks before the state and attorneys representing inmates must report to a federal judge with recommendations on when the receivership should end and whether it should maintain some oversight role. The Legislature should create an independent board to monitor prison medical care to make sure conditions do not deteriorate once the state retakes control, the report said. It also recommends that the state experiment with contracting for medical services to cut costs.
Read full entry »Texas officials say they can't obey a court order forcing them to move more than 150 mentally incompetent prisoners to psychiatric hospitals by June 1 because they don't have enough space, staff or money to do so, reports the Austin American-Statesman. The Texas attorney general's office has asked District Judge Orlinda Naranjo to review her January decision forcing the Department of State Health Services to start moving all current "forensic commitments" to state psychiatric hospitals. All such prisoners who arrive after June 1 would have to be moved to a psychiatric hospital within 21 days of a judge's order.
Complying with the court order would cost between $39 million and $55.2 million, according to a motion for a new trial filed by the attorney general's office this month. "The short timelines set forth in the court's order makes it physically, fiscally and logistically impossible for DSHS to comply and indicates a lack of appreciation for the magnitude of the task and the complications inherent in implementing the terms of the order," the state wrote in its motion. The attorney general has also appealed the ruling with the state's 3rd Court of Appeals. Naranjo's ruling stemmed from a 2007 lawsuit filed by Disability Rights Texas, a federally funded organization that is an advocate for people with disabilities, including mental illness. Over the past two years, the average prisoner spent six months in jail waiting for a hospital bed, Naranjo wrote in her order.
Read full entry »Despite calls to save money by releasing seriously ill and aging inmates, Texas’ parole board approves only a small portion of eligible prisoners, and the approval rate for this fiscal year is lower than usual, reports the Dallas Morning News. Inmate advocates and some fiscal conservatives cite cost savings as a reason to expand inmate medical releases. Parole board members and prosecutors say they concentrate on public safety, not cost. “We’re looking to see if that person, considering their medical condition, if they are a threat to society,” said Rissie Owens, chairwoman of the Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Board members don’t know a prisoner’s medical care costs when making their decisions, she said. Along with the nature of the inmate’s crimes and ability for future criminal activity, the board looks at things like the prisoner’s degree of mobility, assistance needed for daily living, cognitive condition, and estimated life expectancy, Owens said. Prison officials and others couldn’t say why the rate of release approvals has dipped this year. Inmates who are terminally or seriously ill, who need long-term care or who are elderly, physically handicapped, mentally ill or mentally disabled may be eligible for the parole, technically called “medically recommended intensive supervision.” Prisoners who committed certain high-level crimes cannot be considered.
Read full entry »The Arizona Department of Corrections, under orders to privatize its troubled prison health-care system, faces a questionable choice, says the Arizona Republic. The department is expected soon to award a three-year contract to provide medical and mental-health care for the nearly 34,000 inmates in Arizona's 10 state-run prisons. The state must choose between two companies with checkered records and a third company that has no track record in correctional health care.
Corizon Inc. of Brentwood, Tn., a privately held company, is the country's largest provider of correctional medical care, operating at 400 prisons and jails in 31 states, with a total prison population of about 400,000. Corizon formed last June from a merger of fierce rivals, both of which repeatedly ran into problems providing adequate health care in other states. As soon as next week, a legal coalition representing Arizona inmates is expected to file suit alleging that the state has systematically and unconstitutionally denied medical care to inmates for weeks or months even for severe, life-threatening conditions.
Prisoners are aging rapidly and American prisons and corrections are unprepared to deal with their needs, says a new report from Human Rights Watch.
Read full entry »Federal oversight of prison health care in California is nearing an end, a judge said yesterday, six years after he ruled that abysmal medical conditions...
Read full entry »North Carolina is readying a new medical complex at its Central Prison to replace buildings that are too cramped and outdated to treat adequately a growing...
Read full entry »The federal health law’s controversial Medicaid expansion is expected to add billions to states’ already overburdened Medicaid budgets. It also offers a rarely discussed cost-cutting opportunity for state corrections agencies. Starting in 2014, virtually all state prison inmates could be eligible for Medicaid coverage of hospital stays—at the expense of the federal government, reports Stateline.org. In most states, Medicaid is not an option for prison inmates. A federal rule allows coverage for Medicaid-eligible inmates who leave a prison and check into a private or community hospital. Technically, those who stay in the hospital for 24 hours or more are no longer considered prison inmates for the duration of their stay.
Under the 1965 law that created Medicaid, anyone entering a state prison lost Medicaid eligibility. The same went for people who entered local jails, juvenile lock-ups, and state mental institutions. The reasoning was that states and local governments had historically taken responsibility for inmate health care so the federal-state Medicaid plan was not needed. An exception to that general rule opened up in 1997 when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wrote to state Medicaid directors saying inmates who leave state or local facilities for treatment in local hospitals can get their bills paid by Medicaid, if they are otherwise eligible. In addition to the incarcerated, those on probation or parole or under house arrest were among those who could participate. As a bonus to state corrections agencies, most inmates would be considered new to Medicaid, making them eligible for 100 percent coverage by the federal government between 2014 and 2019.
Read full entry »An unemployed Gaston County, N.C., man robbed a bank of $1, then sat to wait for police to arrest him because he wanted access to free health care in prison, reports WCNC-TV. Robber James Verone said from jail that he pulled the robbery of a Gaston RBC branch office on June 9 because he was "sort of a logical person." He was not armed when he passed a teller a note that read, "This is a bank robbery. Please only give me one dollar."
Bank employees called police, who found Verone, 59, sitting on a sofa waiting for them. Verone said he robbed that bank because he doesn’t have medical insurance. He has a growth on his chest, two ruptured disks and a problem with his left foot. He has no money and said he believed jail was the best place he could go for medical care. He said he hopes for a three-year sentence, after which he will be eligible to collect Social Security. But his plan may have a glitch. Because he took only a dollar, he was charged with larceny, not bank robbery.
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