Rick Schmitt, writing for Kaiser Health News, has an interesting look at the difficulty ex-prisoners have in finding medical care. From his story:
Expanded indigent-care is expected to help many of the 130,000 former inmates discharged every year in the state, as well as the mainly impoverished communities where they move upon release. The newly freed arrive home in neighborhoods in Oakland and Hayward, Richmond and Antioch, bringing high rates of chronic and communicable disease and serious mental illness.
The federal aid results from an agreement that state officials negotiated with the Obama administration to get early access to funds under the health care overhaul law. Officials in Alameda County say they could receive an extra $35 million a year on top of the roughly $100 million the county spends annually on indigent care. While details have yet to be fully worked out, they intend to spend a chunk of the new money on the formerly incarcerated.
"The reentry population is a perfect target," says Alex Briscoe, director of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency.
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