Health Care A Right in WA Jails
Phillip Damon Arnold drunkenly hit three Lakewood police cars during a chase that ended with two bullets in his shoulder and another in his cheek. It also ended with the taxpayers of Lakewood becoming the financial caretakers of Arnold’s medical treatment. The city’s reward for capturing him without injuring bystanders: a hospital bill of $138,000. News reported in The News Tribune.
On Sept. 26, 2008, Arnold drove his Chevy Blazer toward a police officer, who responded with gunfire, according to police reports obtained by The News Tribune.
The bullets hit the Lakewood resident but didn’t stop him. Police eventually pinned his vehicle on Gravelly Lake Drive Southwest and wrestled a bloody Arnold out of the front seat. He was arrested and taken to Tacoma General Hospital for treatment of his wounds.
Arnold was convicted 11 months later of felony harassment, attempting to elude a police vehicle and three counts of first-degree malicious mischief. He was sentenced to almost three years at McNeil Island Corrections Center. A review board deemed the shots fired by police to be justifiable.
Even so, the city was on the hook for Arnold’s hospital stay, which included surgery and other care. Lakewood leaders say his care actually cost more than $138,000, but the hospital offered a negotiated rate.
The city paid the bill last fall, and City Manager Andrew Neiditz notified the City Council in an Oct. 6 e-mail that was obtained by The News Tribune. Similar incidents have played out across Washington since the state Attorney General’s Office issued a controversial opinion on jail costs in 2005.
The attorney general placed the burden of inmates who need medical care before they are booked into jail on the agencies that arrest them, as long as the inmates have no insurance or otherwise cannot afford medical treatment.
The U.S. Supreme Court had previously ruled that people behind bars have a right to health care. It also ruled that whoever has custody of a convicted inmate – a county government or the state – must pay for that care.
But up until 2005, it was unclear who was responsible for the medical bills of people who are wounded or injured during the arrest or before being booked into jail. Since then, cities including Lakewood have had to shell out thousands of dollars.
“It’s been a big pain and cost to the cities,” said Jim Doherty, legal consultant for Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington. “It’s the hot potato. None of the agencies want to be responsible.”
COSTLY CARE
The hot potato has landed in the hands of various jurisdictions across Washington.
- In Tacoma, the city paid about $115,000 for health care for people arrested in 2008, almost all of which involved a man who had been shot, according to deputy city attorney Michael Smith, legal advisor to the police department.
- In Orting, Police Chief Bill Drake said the department had a nearly $72,000 medical bill for someone it arrested in 2008. The city negotiated a reduced price, but for a department with an annual jail budget of about $30,000, it still took a hit, he said.
- In Sequim, a man who eventually pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend in a motel room was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his arrest. The city had budgeted $75,000 for all inmate medical costs for the entire year. But his chemotherapy treatments had cost the city about $37,000 by 2005, according to News Tribune files. The man later died.
“It does become an issue when these bills become substantial,” said Drake, the Orting chief. “It can be substantial for smaller cities.”
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE DEPENDS ON THE CRIME
Pierce County charges a daily fee of $80 per inmate to the agencies that use its jail – a fee that includes medical, dental and mental health services for felons.But before an arrested person is allowed into jail in the first place, a nurse determines whether he or she is “stable enough to be cared for in a stabilized environment,” said deputy prosecutor Craig Adams, legal advisor to the Sheriff’s Department.
If he’s not, then the arresting agency must pay for the care that will make the alleged criminal healthy enough for jail.
Later, if an inmate is convicted of a felony, the county continues to cover health care costs – or the state does, if the person is sent to a state prison. If the person is arrested or convicted of a misdemeanor, medical care is the city’s responsibility.
Meanwhile, the cost of medical services at the jail continues to climb – even as county leaders have lowered the overall corrections budget.
Pierce County budgeted $3.6 million for medical services related to the jail in 2003. This year, it budgeted $6.2 million.
The jail provided 73,932 sick calls to inmates in 2009, 1,000 more than the previous year. It budgeted almost $441,000 to cover drug supplies for inmates this year, more than $25,000 above 2009.
Corrections Chief Martha Karr cited a number of factors for the rising costs.
“We’re getting older, less healthy inmates,” she said. “We have to treat them.”
“We are seeing offenders with significant medical issues,” she added. “When individuals are arrested, they may not have seen a doctor or dentist in years. Unlike in our community, while they are incarcerated, they have a constitutional right to health care.”
LACK OF INSURANCE
Hospitals first try to charge the medical insurance provider of the person arrested. The problem, city officials say, is that many of these people don’t carry insurance.There have been efforts to implement reforms to help cities. The Association of Washington Cities has discussed everything from jurisdictions pooling money to lobbying the state to help with extraordinary bills. But no law has been passed to provide assistance to local governments.
The state Department of Corrections can release low-risk inmates who have costly medical conditions under electronic monitoring if their release is expected to save the state money.
In Arnold’s case, he didn’t have insurance coverage for the wounds he sustained during the chase.
According to police reports, officers initially stopped him because of improper lane travel in the 5400 block of 100th Street Southwest. Arnold wouldn’t follow the officer’s directions and sped off.
Eventually police cornered him in a parking lot at the 9100 block of Bridgeport Way Southwest, where he rammed two of their patrol cars, sped away again and got stuck on a fence, police records state.
Three officers got out of their cars to confront him, according to the records; that’s when he put his car in reverse, got unstuck from the fence and headed toward the officers. One officer fired three shots.
Arnold’s SUV was eventually pinned again and he was pulled, wounded, from the vehicle on Gravelly Lake Drive.
He already had a criminal history of burglary, theft and possession of stolen property.
EXTENSIVE CARE
Lakewood wouldn’t disclose what treatment the $138,000 paid for, but police reports indicate Arnold was in bad shape and needed extensive medical care.“The suspect was covered in blood and was bleeding from the jaw,” one officer wrote in his report.
“When I told Arnold to get out of the car he replied, ‘No! You guys already shot my teeth out!’” wrote another officer. “At this point I noticed Arnold’s mouth had been injured and his shirt was covered in small white chunks of material that could have been teeth.”
Officer Ronald Owens guarded him on Sept. 26, 2008, hours after the chase. (Owens was one of the four Lakewood officers fatally shot by Maurice Clemmons in a Parkland coffee shop two months ago.)
“I could smell an overwhelming odor of intoxicants emitting from the room,” Owens wrote in his report. “I observed Arnold lying on a backboard. He was covered up with blankets. Arnold’s right side of his face was extremely swollen. He had on a clear plastic mask that covered his mouth and nose. He was in a ‘C collar’ and there was blood on him.”
The officer who shot Arnold was placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure in officer-involved shootings.
In November 2008, the department’s review board unanimously ruled the shooting was “lawful and within LPD policy,” and the matter was closed, according to documents.
Today, Arnold is 31 years old and is serving a 33-month sentence at McNeil Island. He is scheduled for release in 2011.
SOLUTION DIFFICULT TO SEE
The $138,000 was the most Lakewood has paid for an inmate’s care. It has paid for other inmates’ treatments, but they amounted to a few hundred dollars each.City Manager Andrew Neiditz said the money for Arnold’s care did not come out of the police budget; it was taken from the city’s operating budget, which in 2009 was $38 million.
Lakewood City Councilman Don Anderson said it’s unfortunate that inmates’ medical bills are an extra financial burden on local governments.
But Anderson said he doesn’t foresee reform soon, because any option will require the use of public dollars. Where the cost falls legally – city, county or state – is almost accidental, he said.
“I honestly don’t know a way around it,” he said.
Recent Comments