By Marisa Lagos
The San Francisco Chronicle
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California should allow hundreds of ill, incapacitated inmates to leave prison early and participate in medical parole program, a move that would save the state hundreds of million of dollars, the federal receiver overseeing the state’s prison health system said Wednesday.
The receiver, J. Clark Kelso, joined with Democratic lawmakers Wednesday to roll out four pieces of legislation, including the medical parole bill, aimed at reducing the state’s $1.8 billion in annual spending on prison health care. Medical parole, combined with the other proposals, could eventually slash prison medical costs by up to $400 million a year, Kelso said.
The state’s prison health care system has been under the control of a federal receiver since 2006, after a judge concluded that substandard treatment was killing about one inmate per week, violating the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
“The public wants health care in a way that offers relief from high costs,” Kelso said, noting that the governor has asked the receiver’s office to cut more than $800 million from the prison health care budget in the fiscal year starting July 1. “Medical parole has been done quite widely. It is not a release ... and is done at no risk to the public.”
Kelso noted that the three other proposals, which would streamline medical care, are already in use and would simply be made permanent by the proposed legislation. They include:
-- Using a central pharmacy at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
-- Using telemedicine, in which patients and doctors can communicate via technology such as video conferencing.
-- Allowing medical providers to evaluate the necessity of certain procedures and treatments based on established criteria.
The medical parole bill, by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, is the largest and most controversial piece of the package of bills. It would allow the Board of Parole Hearings and state corrections secretary to parole inmates who do not pose a threat to public safety and are “medically and physically incapacitated,” Leno said. Republican lawmakers immediately expressed skepticism about the proposal and its estimated cost savings: up to $250 million over the first several years.
Leno said the legislation is similar to laws in 36 other states, including Texas. Death row inmates and those with life sentences - including inmates on their third strike - would be ineligible, he said. If an inmate’s medical condition improves, he or she would be sent back to prison. It differs from compassionate release, in which a sick inmate’s sentence is removed by a judge near the end of the prison term, because under medical parole the offender would remain on parole, would probably be electronically monitored and could be sent back to prison.
Leno said the law would affect inmates such as one unnamed man who has end-stage cardiac disease, cannot move on his own and has to live in a skilled-nursing facility outside of prison, costing the state up to $1 million a year.
The state has more than 1,300 prisoners whose medical costs exceeded $100,000 per year, he said, and many of them are already receiving care outside of prisons - while being overseen by corrections officers - on the state’s dime. If inmates are released, he said, the cost of their care would be borne by the federal government through programs such as Medi-Cal and social security, Leno and the receiver said.
But state Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster Los Angeles County, said the bill ignores the core problem: that California spends $11,600 per inmate each year on medical care, double what the state of New York shells out. He said the compassionate release program is sufficient and that he doubts Leno’s proposal is politically viable.
“They are estimating $250 million in savings, but to achieve that you would have to go so deep into the population, you’d have to release child molesters and murderers,” Runner said. “I’m doubtful that kind of money could be saved. ... Why can’t we rein back our total health care costs? Why are we so out of whack with other states?”
Rachel Arrezola, a spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office, was more receptive, saying the administration will work with Kelso’s office to review the proposed legislation.
Copyright 2010 San Francisco Chronicle