Texas legislative leaders gave an initial cold shoulder to the idea of hiring private contractors to take over parts or all of Texas’ cash-strapped health care system for convicted felons, reports the Austin American-Statesman. Their concern is that there’s no proof such a plan would save money, and time is too short to explore such an extensive overhaul of a complicated and costly system.
Leaders appeared intent to move ahead with a funding plan relying primarily on two state universities — the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Texas Tech University — to provide most medical services for Texas’ 154,000 convicted criminals. “The concern is that private vendors would come in and cherry-pick the best parts of the system, and leave everything else because that’s not where the money is,” said Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire.