Posted on 01/31/2002 9:56:02 AM PST by ThJ1800
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30 — In a sign of the kind of expenses many states may soon face, a California state prison inmate has received a heart transplant that is likely to cost taxpayers here close to $1 million.
The federal courts have held for years that inmates cannot be denied medical care just because they are incarcerated, and prisoners here and in other states have received other organ transplants, like livers and kidneys. But experts said they believed that the California case was the first successful heart transplant for an inmate, yet probably not the last.
The nation's prison population is growing older, and many inmates have chronic illnesses, such as hepatitis C, that require expensive treatment. The result is that health care costs in the prison systems are soaring, with a need for transplants expected to add substantially to the tax burden.
"Things that people never thought about 25 years ago, we're now having to deal with," said Scott Chavez, vice president of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. "This is a responsibility that society has, and the costs can be quite high. Nobody has a real handle on this."
In California, which has nearly 157,000 inmates, annual health care costs have risen to $663 million in the current fiscal year, from $282 million four years ago, officials said.
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Hopefully, they are to old and feeble to go out and commit those crimes.
Yes, it has already been done numerous times.
Unfortunately, the scum bags have a constitutional right to the best health care money can buy. The average citizen does not. That is liberalism for you.
Neither has a constitutional right to health care, but both do have basic right to life, after which they are responsible for the care of such.
However, this "scum bag" may be getting the best health care money can buy, but the problem is that he is not paying for it - the average citizen, who has no access to such care, is.
It's down right sickening. :(
You got that right.
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