Inmates can get health benefits when released

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Inmates can get health benefits when released
Advocates say new law will help keep people from returning to jail.

By Cara Matthews
clmatthe@gannett.com
Star-Gazette Albany Bureau

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer has signed legislation that will suspend rather than terminate Medicaid benefits for prisoners while they are incarcerated so they can re-enter society without having to wait two to three months for benefits to restart.

The legislation is being hailed by advocates, who have been pushing it for about 10 years, and the New York State Association of Counties.

"The initiative's been pushed for years, and we've always made the argument that this is a cost saver," said Glenn Liebman, head of the Mental Health Association of New York State. "It's one of those bills that's been around forever -- that were so logical and made sense -- and yet never happened."

Stephen Acquario, executive director of the Association of Counties, said the new law gives former inmates access to health care and mental health treatment, "two of the tools they need to stay out of jail and become productive members of their community."

"It costs considerably less -- in taxpayer dollars and in social capital -- to provide health care treatment and mental health service than it does to fund the revolving door of recidivism into our county jails," he said in a statement.

The legislation is one of nearly 200 the governor has signed or vetoed in recent days. The Medicaid bill is an important one that will especially help former inmates with chronic diseases who "need immediate and uninterrupted attention, and will provide a more seamless transition from prison to community living and increase the chance that offenders will not return to prison in the future," said Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for Spitzer.

The daily cost for housing an inmate in a local jail ranges from $291 in New York City to more than $100 for counties outside the city, according to the Association of Counties. Counties and New York City house hundreds of inmates awaiting transfer to state prisons, representing a total of $38 million in annual expenses for counties, the group said.

Currently, New York terminates Medicaid benefits to prevent fraud, the bill's sponsors, state Assemblyman Keith Wright, D-Manhattan, and state Sen. Kemp Hannon, R-Nassau County, said in a memo supporting the legislation. Federal law prohibits using Medicaid funds for health care services in correctional facilities, but it does allow for suspending them. Even people who spend a few days in jail can have their Medicaid benefits terminated, the sponsors said.

The federal government pays half the cost of Medicaid, with state and local governments splitting the rest.

Even with a process aimed at expediting the application process prior to release, there are still significant lag times before benefits are reinstated, the memo said, and re-enrollment adds administrative work to the system.

A large percentage of prison inmates are poor and eligible for Medicaid, and many suffer from health and substance-abuse problems, such as HIV, psychiatric conditions, drug and alcohol addiction and chronic ailments, such as diabetes and asthma, Wright and Hannon said.

Among New York City inmates, 70 percent have a history of substance abuse, 20 percent require detoxification upon admission, 40 percent require mental-health services, and 8 percent of males and 18 percent of females are HIV-positive.

A recent study by Hunter College found that in the year after being released from a New York City jail, women with Medicaid coverage were more likely to participate in a residential drug-treatment program and less likely to be rearrested.

Of the bills Spitzer signed, a number of them are crime-related. They include making cemetery desecration a felony; increasing the penalty for failing to register as a sex offender from a Class A misdemeanor to a felony; creating the crimes of aggravated vehicular assault and aggravated vehicular homicide for intoxicated drivers; and providing prison inmates and individuals calling them with cheaper telephone rates.

Others are school-related -- laws that request students entering school to present dental-health certificates; increase the amount of surplus operating funds school boards can maintain; and require that children riding in small vans used as school buses wear seat belts.