In America, the often-criticized criminal justice and health care systems are deeply intertwined.
And in Multnomah County, taxpayers are now on the hook for nearly $1 million more than budgeted this year to pay for jail inmates’ trips to the hospital for care beyond what the in-house staff can provide.
“A handful of people can make a big difference,” says Joanne Fuller, director of the Multnomah County Health Department (MCHD), which oversees inmate healthcare. “Hospitals are expensive!”
Last week, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to tack $900,000 of general fund money on to MCHD’s “corrections health” budget—a necessity in order to keep the department from closing out the fiscal year in the red.
The department expects to spend about $19.3 million this year for inmate healthcare-related expenses, including $2 million to compensate local hospitals that care for its inmates. That’s roughly double the amount budgeted for so-called “outsourced” care—and the reasons have reverberations in the ongoing national healthcare debate.
“This year we’ve seen an increase in inmates going to the hospital, and inmates who don’t have Medicaid coverage or are ineligible for Medicaid requiring hospitalization,” Wendy Lear, business services director for the health department, told the county board last week. “So we’ve spent more than we anticipated in outside medical costs.”