A prison sentence is not a death sentence — fix the correctional health care crisis now
Every time a federal judge takes over a state prison system, the governor's office cries judicial overreach. But look at how we got here. In Arizona, as in most states, the correctional health care crisis didn't happen because judges were too eager to intervene. It happened because legislatures underfunded prison medical services for years, and people died of cancer, heart disease and infections that could have been treated.
I don't envy the position states are in. Running a prison system is expensive, and voters rarely reward politicians for spending on inmates. But the Eighth Amendment doesn't have a budget carve-out, and it doesn't care about party lines. When a state locks someone up, it assumes responsibility for their basic needs, including health care.
What I'd want to know is whether Arizona is serious about fixing this on its own or just looking for a way to delay court oversight. The track record suggests the latter. States that drag their feet usually end up with stricter judges and bigger bills. The smart play is to act first, and the humane play is to act at all.