Community Commentary:

There is no denying California’s prison system is expensive. Like other programs, the prison system received one of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proverbial haircuts earlier this summer. He agreed, along with the majority Democrats in the legislature, to cut the spending on prisons by $1.2 billion, but no one spelled out how that haircut was to be given.

Predictably, the soft-on-crime majority in the legislature has opted to use the state’s fiscal crisis as an excuse to dumb down California’s tough-on-crime laws and, in effect, throw open the prison doors and release tens of thousands of inmates. To hear them tell it, early release is the only way to alleviate overcrowding and get to a savings of $1.2 billion. Bear in mind that some of these legislators are the very same people who, five years ago, criticized efforts to build new correctional facilities, citing declining inmate populations.

There are plenty of other ways to find $1.2 billion in prison cost savings that do not include giving convicted felons a get-out-of-jail-free card. Senate Republicans proposed common-sense reform that deals with the root causes of skyrocketing prison costs, the biggest culprit of all being inmate health care.

Between 2000 and 2008, inmate health-care costs rose from $675 million to $2.9 billion — that’s nearly a 400% increase. California spends about $14,000 per inmate every year on health care while other states spend a fraction of that; New York spends $5,800 and Florida spends $4,300. The federal government spent $4,400 in 2007. California’s prison medical staff has tripled over the last 10 years. It may be the opinion of three liberal federal judges that California’s prison health care is inadequate, but these numbers belie that myth.

Meanwhile, community clinics are forced to shut down while many California families struggle to pay their insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses. Inmates don’t have to worry about health-care costs, or whether a preexisting condition is going to preclude them from getting insurance. You, the taxpayer, can worry about that.

Incarcerated felons should not have better health care than the law-abiding citizens of California. That’s about as common-sense as you can get. During the debate on how to cut prison costs, my Republican colleagues and I introduced on the Senate floor an amendment to that bill, declaring that the state shall not spend more on an inmate’s health care than it would for a Medi-Cal recipient. This amendment was summarily dismissed by the majority party without debate.

In the 2007-08 fiscal year, Medi-Cal spent an average of $5,670 per recipient. If the proposed amendment had been adopted, the question of how to cut $1.2 billion out of the prison budget would have been answered with a simple solution: Cut the gold-plated health-care benefits prisoner receive. This is a $2-billion solution that keeps prisoners where they belong — in jail and not out on the streets.

TOM HARMAN is a state senator covering the 35th District.