10-year prison care deal? Try 10 months
Source: By KAREN VOYLES, Gainesville Sun (FL), September 19, 2006
Back in January, the Department of Corrections thought it had health care for a quarter of all state inmates taken care of for a decade. Prison officials signed a nearly $69 million-a-year contract with Prison Health Services to provide health care for inmates in 13 South Florida prisons for the next 10 years. Instead of 10 years, however, the contract will end up lasting just over 10 months.
Officials at Prison Health Services, owned by the publicly traded American Service Group, said they based their winning low bid for the contract on faulty numbers from the state. They also blamed rising health care costs for needing to bail out of a contract that they said "underperformed financially."
Related article from the Sun Sentinel: Tennessee firm backs out of $792 million deal to provide health care to Fla. inmates