Department of Corrections proposes to squeeze money from prisoners for their medical care. We oppose the concept and the specific regulation. On behalf of ourselves and Pennsylvania's 36,000 pathetic prisoners and their families, we oppose the regulation and ask to have it reconsidered.
There is a high incidence of illness and injury in Pennsylvania's many prisons. The illnesses are mostly the result of the shamefully unsanitary conditions of the prisons. While food service areas and bakeries are especially dangerous, a lot of illness is caused by the inhumane packing together of the prisoners. Sick persons are compelled to work preparing and serving food. Sick persons are forced to share tiny, filthy spaces with those who are trying to avoid becoming sick.
A large part of the illness in prison is the result of the grossly inept medical services and of old age. One of the more cruel follies of the present vindictiveness is that older and older prisoners are being confined for longer and longer periods. The system weakens their health and they become chronically ill. They are habitually denied adequate medical care so they become more and more sick.
Injuries in prison are due mostly to the extremely unsafe prisons themselves. The government would not allow any private industry to operate such grossly unsafe plants. Everyday prisoners are maimed and crippled by the very un-safeness of their working and living quarters. Often their injuries are neglected.
Another large number of prisoner injuries come from the viciousness of the guards. Guards are actually trained to be vindictive and violent. Persons who are mentally unsound are frequently recruited as guards. The huge surplus of guards often get involved in feeding frenzies of violence against prisoners. Their pathological over-response causes innumerable injuries.
These illnesses and injuries cost money to treat. Our legislature has decided that the way to address these costs is to try to bleed the money out of the prisoners themselves. You wonder if anyone on Capitol Hill has any connection with the real world! Are they all so fuzzy-brained?
Because they have plenty of money for medical care, they seem to think that prisoners have money too. That simply isn't true. Prisoners are by far the poorest class of citizens in the country.
The politicians lust for money. As our government has become more and more conservative, it's become more and more and more obsessed with wringing money from those classes of persons who can't represent their own interests. The politicians have an illusion that prisoners are a new gold mine of revenue. As with most of their ideas, the conservative politicians are wrong about this, too.
The average prisoners is worth about 50 cents a day. That's not much of a gold mine for the politicians to exploit. We recognize that they can't help themselves. Their irrational addiction to money will continue to drive politicians to steal even these pennies from the poorest class of citizens; citizens who can't even vote to protect their own interests.
One of the most ridiculous arguments presented by the politicians is that prisoners are abusing the system by seeking medical care when it's not really needed. To discourage this supposed abuse, they'll charge them a week's pay for the privilege of a medical visit.
It's true that a few prisoners, especially those locked in the hole for long periods, are so lonely and starved for ordinary human attention and concern that they seek contact with nurses. A decent psychological and social service program could immediately resolve the few abuses of this kind.
There are at least as many prisoners who are sick or injured but refuse to seek medical attention. They'd rather avoid all the frustration and harassment of pleading for treatment.
The new regulation will result in no profit for the Commonwealth and in the deaths of prisoners. Prisoners, especially the older men who can't work enough to earn the medial fees, will fail to get medical care when they need it. They will die from untreated and under-treated medical problems. Colds will become pneumonia, chest-pain will become heart attack, scrapes will become septicemia. For mere pennies, the Commonwealth will cultivate a whole class of cripples.
The scheme will be VERY expensive for taxpayers. Firstly, in order to collect the $2 from each sick prisoner, the state will waste about $5 in paper processing costs. In effect, the ill-conceived scheme will cost the taxpayers about $3 more than it now costs for each prisoner who seeks treatment.
Those hundreds of thousands of additional tax dollars are only a drop in the bucket. By paying for their own medical care, each prisoner now has a financial interest in the malpractices which are so common by the inept medical staff. Expensive malpractice claims from prisoners and their survivors will explode.
Many, many sick and injured men will be completely unable to earn enough to pay for their own medical treatment. Their families and loved ones will end up paying the cost. The families of prisoners are typically poor, minority and often unable to care properly even for themselves. It will be those poor citizens who carry the greatest part of the burden. In effect, this is an additional tax on the poor!
The greatest cost to the society and the taxpayers, however, will be the effect that the prisoners have on the community when they are eventually released. Being destitute, they will simply commit more crime. Being sick, they will be unable to carry their own weight. They will earn less and pay smaller taxes.
We urge that the proposed regulation be scrapped and that the legislature be advised that it is an impractical scheme.
Sincerely yours:
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