Long sentences boost prison costs for seniors' healthcare

The Houston Chronicle has a story today on a topic familiar to Grits readers titled "A growing burden: As more elderly prisoners serve time, state officials struggle to pay their medical costs." The article opens:

A growing population of elderly inmates is driving up prison medical care costs to the point that some Texas lawmakers would like to see more of those who are feeble and chronically ill released early.

In the last decade, the number of inmates 55 and older has spiked as much as 8 percent each year, growing to about 12,500, while the general inmate population has remained fairly flat.

In prisons across the country, inmates grow old serving longer sentences and enter prison at an older age. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of inmates 55 and older in state and federal prisons increased by 76 percent to 76,400 inmates, according to the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. The general population grew by 18 percent.

With rising medical care costs and dwindling state budgets, policy-makers and prison officials have struggled to keep pace. Elderly inmates in Texas make up 8 percent of the state's prison population, yet they account for more than 30 percent of prison hospitalization costs.

In fiscal 2010, the state spent more than $545 million on inmate health care. It paid $4,853 per elderly offender for care compared with $795 for inmates under 55, according to the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee.

"It's no different than in the free world," said Dr. Owen Murray, chief physician and vice president of offender services for the University of Texas Medical Branch, which provides most of the state's prison medical care. 

"They're more expensive because they have more medical needs."

Legislation to speed up medical parole failed to make it through the process (too many other important things to attend to, I guess), so it's up to the parole board to address this problem if it's to be confronted at all. Given their record on medical parole, though, there's scant cause for optimism: "In Texas, more than 1,000 offenders are identified each year as being eligible for medical parole, according to a Legislative Budget Board report. About a third of those are processed and presented to the state parole board, which approves 25 percent of those cases each year. Since 1991, 1,287 offenders have been released under the program — about 64 prisoners per year, the report said."

See related Grits posts:

• If they wanted to, parole board could cut TDCJ spending easier than legislators
• Parole, reentry and cutting corrections costs
• Geriatric prisoner images
• Texas medical parole process praised: Recommendations are timely but parole board fails to act
• CA considers medical parole as solution to rising prison health costs
• Older offenders driving TDCJ health costs
• California will release older offenders to save money
• TDCJ: Paroling elderly offenders could save Texas $49 million per year
• AIDS drugs, healthcare for elderly inmates driving TDCJ health costs
• Sex crimes and elderly prisoners' health costs
• Prison health is a budget buster
• Elderly inmates' health costs rising