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| Privatized prison health care scrutinized |
| By washingtonpost.com - Kimberly Leonard, |
| Published: 07/23/2012 |
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About 20 states, including Arizona, Illinois and Maryland, have shifted all or portions of their prison health-care operations to private providers in an attempt to cut costs, a trend that is raising concerns among unions and prisoners’ rights groups. Officials in the states say the companies — which provide medical, dental, mental and pharmaceutical services — are less expensive than employing state workers, in part because using them saves on benefits and pension costs. Human rights groups, however, say that private operators are not always providing care that is as good or better than what the state could do. Joel Thompson, co-chair of the Health Care Project at Prisoners’ Legal Services in Massachusetts, said using private services can have its own set of problems. “As with anything privatized or contracted out, you worry about whether the incentive to cut costs becomes too great,” he said. Public employees see the move as yet another attack on unions, and they question the quality of care. In Florida, labor unions filed suit in May, urging a judge to block the state’s proposal to contract out inmate medical services, which threatens the jobs of 900 state employees, said Jeanie Demshar, director of professional practice advocacy and labor relations for the Florida Nurses Association. The state planned to use two of the nation’s largest vendors, Corizon and Wexford Health Sources, but the court declined to rule on the case this month after determining that the suit was moot because the budget for the new fiscal year did not include the plan. “The reason that privatization is a better model is that when you look at state departments of corrections and local facilities, their core mission is safety, security and rehabilitation of the inmates,” said Mark Hale, Wexford’s president and chief executive. “Health care is required by the Constitution but is not a core competency of those agencies.” During the past two decades, states and private providers have been targets of lawsuits alleging negligent or inadequate care of prisoners. “I’m not aware of any correctional system that thinks it’s where it needs to be,” said Jesse Jannetta, senior research associate at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center. “I’ve noticed the same challenges and problems despite how things are structured or who is responsible for what aspect of care.” Under the Eighth Amendment directive against cruel and unusual punishment, prisoners are guaranteed adequate health care. But managing prisoners’ health care is difficult. Infectious disease, mental illness and addiction are common problems for inmates, according to the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights. Furthermore, a January report by Human Rights Watch detailed the growing number of aging inmates, who incur costs that are nine times as high as those for younger inmates. Read More. |
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