A legislative committee blocked three contracts with companies for medical care in Alabama prisons, saying the deals were too expensive and were reached without open bidding.
The move could leave more than 27,000 inmates temporarily without health care.
Prison system officials have defended the contracts, valued at a combined $172.3 million. Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell warned that delaying them could land the state in trouble with federal courts, which are already reviewing prison conditions.
Sen. Larry Dixon, R-Montgomery, a longtime member of the Legislature's Contract Review Committee, also urged his colleagues not to block the deals Thursday. "They don't have any other options," he said.
Aside from the cost and the bidding process, panel members Sens. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, and Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, among others expressed concern that the deals were reached in November, two months before being submitted to lawmakers for review; they involve out-of-state companies, and provide prisoners with better health care than some poor and elderly people.
Campbell said the state did seek proposals, although not sealed bids, from at least four companies before settling on the vendor for the primary health care contract, the largest of the three deals. That company offered the lowest price, he said.
State law makes it difficult to pay contractors without a valid contract. It was not clear whether health care providers who had been working in state prisons under emergency contract status would continue without a valid agreement in effect.
"We're going to have to pay for it eventually," Campbell said. "Either we pay now or we pay through litigation."
The eight-member Contract Review panel ordinarily meets monthly to review contracts that the state has proposed without obtaining bids. The group cannot void a contract, but any member of the committee may delay its implementation for up to 45 days.