Why do paitents pay for healthcare and prisoners not?

Prisoners have no money, generally.

@chyna Maybe the prisoners can be given a bill for services after a stay, in jail? Governments are looking for new ways to tax people. Has that ever been suggested?

For prisoners to suffer from any ailments would be cruel and unusual punishment. That’s why they get it for free.

@RedDeerGuy1 I think even I would protest making prisoners pay for their stays.

Guy’s walking out the gate wearing a pathetic suit the county/state gave him, a few bucks in his pocket, happy to have at last ‘paid society back’ and the guard in the booth says, ”‘Scuse me buddy, but that’ll be $28,496. Cash or charge?”

I think that is a good idea @RedDeerGuy1 to have them pay for their room and board. After-all it’s their own fault they committed the crime that put them in there in the first place. Why should we pay for all that upkeep? You know the US has the largest prison population in the entire world and by a long-shot! BILLIONS of dollars supporting scumbags paid for by innocent citizens.

My former brother-in-law…whenever he needed a doctor’s care would walk up to a cop & punch him in the face so he would be arrested. He’d get his treatment & be out of jail within 30 days. The judges would joke about it!!!

^^ He’s lucky the cop didn’t give him a couple extra stitches to help with his healing. haha

@RayaHope Do you know how much prisoners make? 25 cents an hour. That has to go for anything they might need, like toothpaste, let alone want. The reason we have so many in our prisons is because the prison systems are effed up. They’re run to make money, not to rehabilitate, which is why there are so many reoffenders. Watch a show or you-tube about how famous Russian prisons are run. They’re so different. They’re how ours should be.

It’s not always entirely the ‘scumbags’ fault. Have you ever been to Watts? South Bronx? Any poor, violent neighborhood?

All I know is our system is all mess up and it needs to be fixed. Most people incarcerated should be, sure there are probably some that shouldn’t be there but that (again) is the systems fault. Not mine or yours, but we pay for it, right?! Okay my mom and others do but soon I will be also. There is too much money in our corrupt system that is why nobody is going to ever fix it. So a few innocents will continue to suffer and the bill will continue to rise $$$! We run a cooked system and nobody wants to fix it!

There is too much money in our corrupt system that is why nobody is going to ever fix it.

Oh agreed! But charging the prisoners their measley 25 cents isn’t going to reduce our taxes significantly. The country club prisons are where the money is.

@RedDeerGuy1 Government doesn’t need to find new ways to tax us. They tax us to death now, and then spend billions of our tax dollars where it’s not doing us any good or in ways we don’t approve of. But hey…fuck the citizen. As long as their paycheck and free health insurance is coming to them. That’s why govt doesn’t care about medicare or medicaid and republicans want to reduce it – they get free insurance!

Sometimes prisoners are charged for room and board, as described here The link also gives a good argument for why this practice is counter-productive.

Prisoners are also patients. Prisoners are in the custody of the government which include providing medical care for them. Not hard to understand if you just think about it.

^^ Maybe I should just go kill some innocent person so I can have free care for the rest of my life. Not hard to understand if you just think about it.

Jail.is no fun and the food is horrible @RayaHope.

Oh @Dutchess_III You DON’T want to do this right now!!!!! Hurting and KILLING innocent people is MUCH MORE HORRIBLE!!!!!

I was responding to your comment about deliberately getting yourself thrown in prison. You don’t want to do that.

@LadyMarissa; from this site.

Assaulting a police officer is considered a violent felony, no matter the type. Usually, probation isn’t an option, putting you in prison from two years to life imprisonment.

@RayaHope
You could also just read the Hippocratic Oath….Do you even know what that is?

Or also get a job.

Before crashing into this pileup I need to be clear on one point – @RedDeerGuy1 is a Canadian citizen, living in Canada. Different system, different laws. I don’t think Red ever intentionally confuses anyone about this fact – but it’s obvious many folks on this site just forget.

In both State and Federal prisons US inmates are required to receive health care under Supreme Court interpretation the Eight Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusal punishment. Every lockup in the country right down to city jails complies with this rule.

But there is no requirement under US law that health care or any other services be provided to inmates free of charge.

None.

And in fact most states and counties do bill prisoners for some costs related to treatment and medications :
https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/features/health-care-in-prison

All the answers here seem very passionate. But the question has nothing to do with facts that actually apply in American prisons.