May 18, 2009: Prison Babies

[ZenGum]

I've heard from the always-reliable souce, TV current affairs shows, that many poor women in the US commit crimes when pregnant so they can give birth in custody and receive free health care of a reasonable quality.
Can anyone confirm if this is true? It was quite a few years ago now.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I wouldn't buy that, they can get health care without going to jail.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I've heard from the always-reliable souce, TV current affairs shows, that many poor women in the US commit crimes when pregnant so they can give birth in custody and receive free health care of a reasonable quality.
Can anyone confirm if this is true? It was quite a few years ago now.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I wouldn't buy that, they can get health care without going to jail.

When I was locked up, still in a local jail, there was more than one (several actually) guy who got himself put in jail for the winter, or simply because they were hungry. Bust a window, get a few weeks worth of free meals. Although now most jails around these parts charge you to keep you locked up. Twenty dollars a day in our county jail. Think about that! You get eleven months & twenty nine days, for stealing a CD, and on top of your fine you get to pay the jail $7280 when you get out.

But, yeah, I totally buy the bit about birthing them babies in jail.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I've heard from the always-reliable souce, TV current affairs shows, that many poor women in the US commit crimes when pregnant so they can give birth in custody and receive free health care of a reasonable quality.
Can anyone confirm if this is true? It was quite a few years ago now.

I can't cite anything for you but after many years in the business I can tell you in my experience this is not true. All women who are prego will get care and they don't need to be in custody to receive the care. They will get nearly the same care as everyone else who pays, has insurance or does not have insurance. There are some differences between the groups but it is not obvious to the patient usually, in the case of obstetrics. Now there is quite a bit of evidence that in the case of the illegal alien women who are prego that other factors exist, but they too receive the same care. In fact the patients with insurance will have significant limits on the care they receive, due to the financial aspect of managed care, not so with the medicaid patients, poor, or illegal aliens.