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Prison health care: is contracting out healthy?

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  • 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%. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Kelly Bedard & H. E. Frech, 2009. "Prison health care: is contracting out healthy?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(11), pages 1248-1260, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:11:p:1248-1260
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1427
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    4. Chandler McClellan & Erdal Tekin, 2017. "Stand Your Ground Laws, Homicides, and Injuries," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(3), pages 621-653.
    5. Bergman, Mats A. & Johansson, Per & Lundberg, Sofia & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2016. "Privatization and quality: Evidence from elderly care in Sweden," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 109-119.

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