by Jo Ingles
The head of the state's prisons department says Medicaid expansion has been beneficial for Ohio's inmates. Prisons director Gary Mohr said nearly 10,600 inmates are getting treatment inside Ohio's lockups.
"Medicaid expansion gives us the opportunity to treat those people in a way, in a consistent way, not a different way but a consistent way, that they were treated inside the prison using the same mental health records, using their same records," Mohr said.
Mohr said continuing treatment after release will help former inmates readjust to the world outside prison.
Maurice Thompson of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law is an opponent of Medicaid expansion.
"Well of course we want to fight recidivism and rehabilitate those in the prison population, but that can be done without a one-size-fits-all Medicaid expansion that applies well beyond the prison population," Thompson said.
Thompson said the state needs to quit putting so many people in prison in the first place. Mohr agrees, and is pushing for more community based treatment options as part of an overall strategy to lower the state's prison population.