Source: Bob Ortega, Arizona Republic News, April 03, 2012

Arizona’s Department of Corrections awarded a $349 million, three-year contract Tuesday to privatize health care for prison inmates that will cost the state $5 million a year more than it spent in 2011. The contract to privatize prison health care — originally pushed by Rep. John Kavanagh as a way to save the state money — was awarded to privately held Wexford Health Sources Inc. of Pittsburgh. Wexford, which has previously lost contracts for poor service and was implicated in a 2008 payoff scandal in Illinois, bid $116.3million a year, $1.1million less than the second-place bid by Corizon Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn.