The Closest Voices Must Be The Loudest Voices.
Foreword: Lewis Conway Jr
Too often policy is set by those who have never experienced the sting, shame nor stigma of incarceration, yet their voice is the loudest. We must allow those who are closest to the issues to be the leaders on those issues. Brother Jeremy is currently incarcerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system and I met him about a year ago when he invited me to come and speak at his unit. Jeremy has been organizing for prisoner rights and fair treatment of folks in cages with medical needs, this article highlights some of the solutions he believes should be implemented.
Prison Healthcare Cost Can Easily Be Fixed
By: Jeremy Busby
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has requested $247 million to cover medical expenses at the current existing levels. Despite operating the largest prison system in the country, TDCJ ranks near the bottom in per-prisoner healthcare spending. One of the main culprits to the extremely costly, yet basic healthcare cost is the $100 medical co-payment that the prison agency require prisoners to pay for perfunctory medical care.
The $100 medical co-payment was a creation of a former state representative name Jerry Madden. Once the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Corrections, it was Madden’s belief that the installation of a medical co-payment would assist the state in funding medical care expenses.
Lacking any type of criminal justice experience — other than chairmanship of the correction committee — Madden failed to understand the crippling effects of such a policy.
First, the medical co-payment created a “black market” that previously didn’t exist.
For example, offender John Doe is indigent, his medical expenses prior to the implementation of the medical co-payment was perhaps, $35,000 annually. Offender, James Doe is not indigent and his medical expenses prior to the medical co-payment implementation was $30,000.
After the medical co-payment implementation, offender James Doe refuses to go to the medical department because he wants to avoid the $100 medical co-payment. So, the state never re-coup a $100 from him. Instead, James Doe relies on John Doe to make bogus medical appointments to obtain the medication and/or medical equipment that he needs to address medical problems. James Doe pays, John Doe with cookies, coffee, or other low price commissary items.
John Doe is indigent, so the state never re-coups $100 from him. And since this has become John Doe’s main source of income, his medical bill sky rockets to over $100,000 annually. John Doe takes repeated bogus trips to the various hospitals that TDCJ utilizes top provide medical care. In the process, taking un-needed MRI’s and other expensive medical tests/procedures, just to get knee wraps, creme and/or other un-needed medications to sell on the black market to the unlimited James Doe’s that exist.
Out of over 140,000 offenders in TDCJ, nearly 50% of them are indigent. Out of that 50%, more than 50,000 are actively participating in the thriving black market that the $100 co-payment has created Secondly, when you combine this with the issues that have already been in the media; offenders deferring doctor visits to avoid this $100 co-payment that results in higher medical cost later; the aging prison population and the failure to reduce the overall prison population, this has created a medical cost nightmare for TDCJ.
While the state’s congress engage in the debate over how much money it should give TDCJ for medical cost, it should take up meaningful legislation that eradicate the flawed $100 medical co-payment that has contributed to the crisis.
Jeremy Busby is a former staff writer for TDCJ’s prison newspaper, The ECHO. He currently is incarcerated at the Mark Stiles Unit, 3060 FM 3514, Beaumont, Texas 77705
