TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

A few days ago, I read about a man in North Carolina who was unemployed, sick and without health insurance. In an act of desperation, he decided to rob a bank, but asked that the clerk give him only one dollar. He then calmly waited for the police to arrive and arrest him.

The gentleman had apparently lost his job as a soda delivery man. His ongoing pain from arthritis, slipped disks and a growth on his chest had now driven him to do the unthinkable, all for the sake of being able to see a doctor.

Inmates today receive better and more efficient health care than hardworking people who have fallen on hard times or that have courageously defended our nation. This injustice is precisely why I introduced SB 484, which would require the prison system to cut health care spending per inmate to no more than the state pays per patient for low-income people on Medi-Cal by 2015.

At a time when payment rates to physicians and hospitals to provide care for working people are among the lowest in the nation based on Medicaid reimbursement rates, physicians and hospitals are paid extremely well to provide health care to inmates.

In the Central Valley, the wait times for most people to see a specialist are as long as six-12 months, while prisoners receive quality care in half the time.

SB 484 will also greatly increase the transparency of the prison health system by allowing the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office to inspect prison health care contracts, which currently cost taxpayers $900 million. The public has a right to know what type of services we are providing, especially since the cost of providing inmate care has more than doubled in just three years.

Most importantly, taxpayers rightfully demand and expect that prisoners do not cut to the front of the line when they need to go see a doctor. I firmly believe that the single mom juggling two jobs to put food on the table or the veteran just returning from Afghanistan must come first over any state inmate.

Prison health care costs are skyrocketing. Recent studies found that California spent just more than $1 billion in 2005-2006 for adult prison health care and the costs then jumped to $2.5 billion in 2008-2009. Last year, California spent a staggering average of $16,000 per inmate on health care services. Texas, on the other hand, spends a fraction of that amount -- $3,650 on providing health care to criminals.

One of the greatest injustices in our prison and health care system is that those who break the law receive better health care than law-abiding citizens and veterans. The best medical care should be reserved for those that work by the sweat of their brow and put their life on the line to defend our liberties -- not those who would steal our freedoms.