[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6764 Introduced in House (IH)]

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115th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 6764

 To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to provide a consistent 
              standard of health care to the incarcerated.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 10, 2018

 Ms. Kuster of New Hampshire (for herself, Mr. Carson of Indiana, Mr. 
  Ryan of Ohio, Ms. Bass, and Mr. Cicilline) introduced the following 
    bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to provide a consistent 
              standard of health care to the incarcerated.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Humane Correctional Health Care 
Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, since 
        1965, the U.S. inmate population has grown by 650 percent: from 
        approximately 200,000 to 1.5 million inmates.
            (2) Prison and jail health care is currently the 
        responsibility of the States, counties, and cities. A study by 
        the Pew Charitable Trust determined that health care spending 
        in the prison system has grown substantially over the past 
        several decades, driven largely by litigation, and amounted to 
        $8.1 billion in 2015. Prison health care spending varies 
        dramatically from State to State, but inconsistent approaches 
        to quality measurement and monitoring make interstate 
        comparison of the quality of care not possible.
            (3) Research published by the National Institutes of Health 
        found that jail and prison inmates have a higher occurrence of 
        most chronic medical conditions than the general population.
            (4) According to the University of Pennsylvania Public 
        Policy Center, the quality of prison health care is generally 
        known to be poor, has no standard of care (level at which the 
        average, prudent provider in a given community would practice), 
        and has been the subject of numerous lawsuits.
            (5) The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 37 
        percent of prisoners have a mental health disorder, yet only 
        approximately a third of those receive treatment.
            (6) The National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse 
        at Columbia University estimates 65 percent of individuals in 
        prisons or jails meet the clinical criteria for substance use 
        disorder (SUD), yet the use of Medical Assisted Treatment (MAT) 
        for those with SUD is limited. There is currently no mechanism 
        to pay for sustained MAT in the criminal justice system.
            (7) President Trump has endorsed the goal of making 
        addiction treatment available to those in prison.
            (8) A study published in the International Journal of Law 
        and Psychiatry states that 68 percent of untreated SUD and dual 
        diagnosis (SUD and mental disorder) offenders returned to 
        prison with an average annual cost of incarceration of $31,977.
            (9) With a repeal of the Medicaid inmate exclusion, nearly 
        all inmates would be eligible for the Medicaid program in 
        States that expanded Medicaid through the Patient Protection 
        and Affordable Care Act; thus, Medicaid could provide a 
        sustained mechanism to pay for MAT, mental health treatment, 
        and general health care for a large portion of the incarcerated 
        population.

SEC. 3. REPEAL OF MEDICAID INMATE EXCLUSION.

    Section 1905(a) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396d(a)) is 
amended, in the matter following paragraph (29), by striking ``such 
term does not include--'' and all that follows through ``who is a 
patient in an institution for mental diseases.'' and inserting ``such 
term does not include any such payments with respect to care or 
services for any individual who has not attained 65 years of age and 
who is a patient in an institution for mental diseases.''.
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