At the Austin Statesman, Mike Ward reported on a suggestion recently endorsed by the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee to expand the number of medical schools that could participate in prisoner health care, ostensibly to increase "competition" by allowing six additional schools to participate if they so choose. He'd first reported on this proposition back in summer of 2011. Grits has suggested before that "Universities won't flock to participate in money losing health care," and coupled with necessary security training and facilities alterations that most schools aren't immediately able to implement without notice (here's a worst case scenario if they don't), this at most is a "down the road" possibility, not something I'd expect to see significantly alter who carries the brunt of prisoner healthcare in the next biennium. Down the road, you never know. Somebody would have to step up and want it while today, them that have it would like to get rid of it.
There's nothing wrong with the provision of prisoner healthcare today by UTMB and Texas Tech that an extra $110 million for the biennium wouldn't fix. Cutbacks to front-line providers were necessary to meet the last round of cuts, so if they leave the prison healthcare budget at current levels, I'd be surprised to see many university medical schools "compete" for the chance to join UTMB and Texas Tech in a perennially money losing proposition. Why would they?
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