Criminal

I came across this article about health care for California prisoners

Attorney General Jerry Brown noted at a news conference last week, a "gold-plated wish list" for California's prison health care system.

His Receivership wants to spend $8 billion to build seven new hospitals, each the size of 10 Wal-Marts, which would create "a holistic environment," with "music therapy, art therapy and other recreation therapy functions," a music room, stress-reduction room, game room and "therapy kitchen," with lots of natural light and high ceilings. A gymnasium would feature a "full-size high school playing court with basketball hoops and built-in edge seating up to four rows deep. Various floor striping allows for other games, such as volleyball, etc. Other sport activities include handball courts, exercise, and (a) workout room."

"The overarching value" of Plan Kelso is to create "a health care facility that cares for prisoners as patients and not a prison that cares for health care needs as inmates." No surprise: The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation estimates the annual cost of operating these facilities to be between $170,000 and $230,000 per inmate.

Remember this is one of the first states crying for a bailout. But never mind that, why would we want to spend that kind of money on criminals? Why the heck would you build hospitals like that for inmates? Why would we treat criminals better than say military and military dependents?

According to the article:

health care spending per inmate rose from $7,601 per inmate in 2005-06 to $13,778 per inmate in 2007-08 -- an 81 percent increase and far above the average of $4,600 spent on health care per Californian.

When I read that I wondered how that compared to what Tricare spends for health care for military and military dependents. I came across the FY 2006 report to congress which gives totals for FY 2005. I crunched some numbers and came up with $2500 per beneficiary for FY 2005. No surprise here, the government spends less on our health care than California spends on the health care of its inmates. But then again California spends more in its inmates than the average cost of the rest of its population. It's really a sad that more is spent on criminals than on law abiding citizens and that more money is spent on their health care than that of the military. It's beginning to seem like the ultimate in welfare entitlements to me: free room and board, free health care...