Pjen
November 6, 2006, 8:10pm
1
In this thread:
I didn’t want to hijack this thread about the cost of an aging prison population, so I started this one. In that thread, Lissa says: Well, I think this is stupid. I think if you’re serving life in prison for rape and murder…any violent offence,...
the matter of health care for prisoners is being discussed. Any legal eagles able to direct me to the court cases that require certain standards of health care to be provided to the incarcerated?
I don’t know about the law, but here in MA, we spent $350,000 for a heart transplant operation-for a prisoner who wasn’t even a US citizen! I’ll try to dig up a cite. wee also pay for:
groman
November 6, 2006, 9:31pm
3
ralph124c:
I don’t know about the law, but here in MA, we spent $350,000 for a heart transplant operation-for a prisoner who wasn’t even a US citizen!
I don’t know why that’s necessarily relevant, and I am not sure why you brought it up, but in case it’s because of this common misconception that non-citizens do not pay taxes - that is wrong. My parents are not citizens and have lived in the US for almost ten years now, the total amount of local, state and federal taxes they have already paid over that period is probably close to quarter of a million dollars if not more.
the adequate health care caes are civil rights cases from 42 USC Section 1983. The standard of care to be provided is pretty low. Google 42 USC 1983 and you’ll learn more than you need to know
make that adequate healthcare for inmates
here’s what appears o be a thorough treatment warning – PDF
Gfactor
November 6, 2006, 11:50pm
8
The Supreme Court has held that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment requires the provision of basic medical care. See Helling , 509 U.S. at 32 ; Estelle v. Gamble , 429 U.S. 97, 103-04 (1976). There is, of course, no general constitutional right to free health care. In prisons, however, since inmates are deprived of the ability to seek health care on their own, the state is obligated to provide basic health care. As the Supreme Court explained in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services , 489 U.S. 189 (1989):
[W]hen the State takes a person into its custody and holds him there against his will, the Constitution imposes upon it a corresponding duty to assume some responsibility for his safety and general well being. . . . The rationale for this is simple enough: when the State by the affirmative exercise of its power so restrains an individual’s liberty that it renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time fails to provide for his basic human needs – e.g. , food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety – it transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause.
The specific standard applicable to an Eighth Amendment claim concerning the denial of health care to inmates is the two-pronged standard enunciated in Estelle v. Gamble , 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976). This standard requires a showing (1) that the prison officials were deliberately indifferent to the inmates’ medical needs and (2) that those needs were serious.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=3rd&navby=case&no=971734p
Billdo
November 7, 2006, 12:02am
9
The US Supreme Court held in Estelle v. Gamble , 492 U.S. 97, 103-04 (1976) (citations and footnotes omitted):
An inmate must rely on prison authorities to treat his medical needs; if the authorities fail to do so, those needs will not be met. In the worst cases, such a failure may actually produce physical “torture or a lingering death,” the evils of most immediate concern to the drafters of the Amendment. In less serious cases, denial of medical care may result in pain and suffering which no one suggests would serve any penological purpose. The infliction of such unnecessary suffering is inconsistent with contemporary standards of decency as manifested in modern legislation codifying the common-law view that “it is but just that the public be required to care for the prisoner, who cannot by reason of the deprivation of his liberty, care for himself.”
We therefore conclude that deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain,” proscribed by the Eighth Amendment. This is true whether the indifference is manifested by prison doctors in their response to the prisoner’s needs or by prison guards in intentionally denying or delaying access to medical care or intentionally interfering with the treatment once prescribed. Regardess of how evidenced, deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s serious illness or injury states a cause of action under 1983.
But the general public is able to have a job, which often includes health insurance, or pays them so they can buy their own health care.