IOWA CITY, IA - The Iowa State Board of Regents may ask the Department of Corrections to help cover the costs of medical care of inmates at University Hospitals.

State law requires the hospital to provide free care to patients from Iowa institutions, most of whom are inmates in the state's prison system. The rest are from the Department of Human Services. About 2,750 patients from state institutions received care at University Hospitals last year. Of those, 89 percent were prison inmates.

Regent Bob Downer said Wednesday that as the prison population grows and becomes older and sicker, state agencies should be asked to share the costs of providing medical care to the inmates.

"It seems to me, where there is a unit of government getting something for which it is not paying, that needs to be examined," Downer said.

The 725-bed hospital provided nearly $6 million in medical services to Iowa prisoners last year, the regents said. Downer said inmate care is paid through rate increases to other patients or from hospital revenues. He said the regents may consider in September asking corrections officials for help.

Downer raised the issue during a regents meeting last month after learning an inmate has an annual prescription cost of about $200,000. The 33-year-old inmate, serving a sentence for willful injury, has a rare genetic condition called Fabry disease. The condition requires twice-monthly shots of an enzyme to help him survive.

Prison and hospital officials are working to use the hospital's purchasing power to lower the cost of the prescription. Fred Scaletta, a corrections department spokesman, said prison officials are willing to discuss solutions, but he expressed concern about the department paying more for inmate care.

"If we were to pay the cost of medical care we don't pay now, we should have to ask for state appropriations," he said. "We could not absorb that."

Stacey Cyphert, senior assistant director for patient medical care at the hospital, said officials plan to look at what other states are doing to pay for patient care.

"Fortunately, right now we're not in the red," he said. "Could we do other things with the money? Certainly."