Beginning January 2014, the 10,000 plus ex-convicts released from California prisons monthly will be eligible to receive health care through the Affordable Care Act—ObamaCare. In addition, the 40 to 50 thousand offenders on probation could qualify for ObamaCare.
The expansion of Medicaid, a key provision of the health care reform law, would provide the coverage, according to The Associated Press.
Advocates for ex-offenders say they believe a healthier population will “reduce medical costs, and possibly keep them from sliding back into crime,” The AP reports.
“It potentially revolutionizes the criminal justice system and health system,” said Faye Taxman, a health services criminologist at George Mason University. “We now have a golden opportunity to develop and implement quality interventions to both improve health outcomes for this population and also reduce the rate of criminal activity.”
Medicaid coverage should help reduce the high mortality rate for ex-offenders, according to Taxman. “Given the high rate of addiction and mental illness among ex-prisoners, another vital law that helps them is the federal Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act, which requires health insurers to provide benefits for mental health and substance treatment that are on par with those they offer for medical and surgical services.”
Nation-wide, many of the 650,000 prisoners released next year will also be eligible for Medicaid.
According to The AP, New York, Oklahoma, Florida, Illinois and California have pre-release programs that connect some ex-offenders with Medicaid. New York is trying to figure out how to connect ex-offenders “with full-service medical homes that coordinate health care services to manage patients’ care.”
Joshua Rich, a professor of medicine and community health at Brown University, studies the health of ex-offenders. In Rich’s opinion, “The states that get out ahead of this, they’re going to have fewer people incarcerated and healthier societies.”
