Not all of the ideas states have come up with to cut costs have been good ones. In Georgia, Republican state legislators proposed a bill that would make inmates liable for all their health-care costs relating to medication. Public-health advocates opposed the bill on the grounds that it could cause a public-health disaster, given that inmates might not seek out treatment to avoid being charged.
"[The bill] didn't have an exception for people with chronic illnesses; we're talking about diabetics, people with pretty serious conditions," says Sara Totonchi, public-policy director at the Southern Center for Human Rights. "If their treatment was contingent on whether or not they could pay, they would choose not to or be unable to seek medical attention. Which is a dangerous scenario to create in a prison."
The bill was changed to apply only to nonessential medications like cold or headache medicine. The savings are also now negligible and would save the Georgia Department of Corrections about $1.8 million a year, a small amount considering the $226 million Georgia spends on health care for inmates.
I think this issue is only obliquely racist, merely by being in a system that has complex racial issues. Substandard medical treatment affects incarcerated people regardless of whether their skin color made it more likely for them to get locked up.
There is an epidemic of Hepatitis C in the joint, and people just do not understand the generational damage and burden we are causing by implementing wrong-headed policies like these.
Meanwhile, privatized medical companies low-bid each other to get the contracts in the state systems, and are forced to provide the bare minimum in healthcare services....
The main problem as I see it is that the legislators don't have a clue what really goes on in these places because they just look at numbers rather than the people that are being affected by their backwards policies.
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