Prison health care: is contracting out healthy?

Health Economics
Kelly Bedard, H E Frech

Abstract

US prison health care has recently been in the news and in the courts. A particular issue is whether prisons should contract out for health care. Contracting out has been growing over the past few decades. The stated motivation for this change ranges from a desire to improve the prison healthcare system, sometimes in response to a court mandate, to a desire to reduce costs. This study is a first attempt to quantify the impact of this change on inmate health. As morbidity measures are not readily obtainable, we focus on mortality. More specifically, we use a panel of state prisons from 1979 to 1990 and a fixed effects Poisson model to estimate the change in mortality associated with increase in the percentage of medical personnel employed under contract. In contrast to the first stated aim of contracting, we find that a 13% increase in percentage of medical personnel employed under contract increases mortality by 1.3%.

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Citations

Apr 10, 2010·The American Journal of Bioethics : AJOB·Erik Nord
Aug 15, 2014·Journal of Correctional Health Care : the Official Journal of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care·Emily A WangCarol Bova
Jul 13, 2018·Health Services Management Research : an Official Journal of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration·Amber L Stephenson, Nicolette Bell
Apr 20, 2021·The Journal of Surgical Research·Mary M LeechAndrew P Loehrer

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