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...a hate group and, Republican's in particular, are intent upon harming persons, never upon doing any social good. But, Conservative are also greedy and money grubbing. They crave personal riches at the expense of the poor and the weak. The Conservative goal with the prisoner co-pay scheme was to punish prisoners, to harm them and, if possible, to kill a few. In addition, they wanted to gouge a few bucks out of inmates or out of inmates' impoverished families. The greatest number of prisoners are blacks and Hispanics. The Conservative aims included an effort to tax and subjugate those minorities. In view of the extremists' goals, the punishment scheme has been VERY effective. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections ("DOC") which administers the scheme, keeps details secret. The DOC would not honor our Right-To-Know request for information about the effects of the scheme. We've had to carefully collect information from our correspondents in the various prisons. The simple fact is that inmates can't afford to pay for their medical treatment. As a direct result of the payment scheme, about 11 prisoners have died. All but one was a minority. The Conservative and DOC war against minorities is working! Since medical treatment is so very expensive for inmates, those who are the oldest and most sick can least afford to pay. They can't keep prison jobs and earn the tiny salary. For that reason they delay or neglect getting medical care. My calculations reveal that approximately 6080 inmates became very much more seriously ill by delaying vital medical treatment. These men suffered considerable pain and physical damage as a result of the medical co-pay scheme. About 70% (7 out of every 10) to these persons were minorities. Conservative cruelty gloats on the suffering of blacks, Hispanics and the poor. They are regarded as inferior, not deserving of good health. Conservatives are devious and sneaky. To the average working citizen, the prisoner co-pay scheme seems innocent. It isn't! An ordinary inmate cannot ordinarily be seen by a doctor. Rather, he or she is "examined" (or just talked to) by a nurse or a "physician's assistant." For that privilege the prisoner must pay a mere $2. Sounds damn cheap, doesn't it? But that's because your are looking at it from your point of view. The few prisoners who are allowed to work, earn about 19 cents an hour. To pay the $2 "sick call" fee, they must pay about 4 day's wages. In terms of a person "on the streets," that is equivalent to about $303.60! Typically, a sick prisoner will need medication. For each medication he must pay an additional $2. On average, the total charge for a sickness amounts to $6. In terms of your income, that equals about $907.90! You can see why prisoners don't get the care they sincerely need. Old prisoners are in need of the most care. They are the very ones who have the smallest income. Therefore, they suffer the most and are the most likely to die. Those men are bankrupted by the system. They are then VERY sick and in need of much more costly care. Since they have nothing at all, the taxpayers pay the greatly exaggerated bill. In the last year, we taxpayers paid about $1,800,000.00 more for prisoner health care then if there were no punitive co-pay system. Take one case. A 59 year-old asthmatic inmate became acutely ill with complications of his asthma. He could not breath. He coughed so intensely that it sky-rocketed his blood pressure. He earned only 7.64 per day (about $190 a year). At the time of his illness, he couldn't afford the expense. He suffered for more than 3 weeks. Finally, money from his wife arrived and he obtained treatment. The co-pay scheme was a tax on his impoverished family. Conservatives love this kind of shit! The man needed 3 weeks of treatment and still wasn't healthy. When he asked the prison administration for the money back, he was told that he would have died without treatment and the charges were justified! The medical co-pay scheme is so draconian, regressive and costly, that it must be changed. Punishing prisoners for getting sick seems cruel to me, but the Conservatives who run the state like cruelty. I suggest that instead of punishing them with the medical charge, they beat the prisoner, or toss him into the hole for a week or two. In the alternative, I suggest that Conservatives be removed from the government.

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