HB 150 (PN 2066) would allow incarcerated people to petition for medical release when they have a substantially diminished ability to function in a correctional facility due to a terminal illness, a chronic and debilitating physical or medical condition or disease, a serious functional or cognitive impairment or deteriorating physical or mental health due to the aging process.
Medical release legislation is desperately needed in our Commonwealth. Under current statute, one can only be released if they receive a terminal diagnosis with less than one year to live, are non-ambulatory and have been able to arrange a nursing home who will take them or home hospice care at the home of a loved one. Since 2010, only 55 people have been “compassionately released” in PA and at least 11 people have died in prison simply awaiting the court to hear their petition. Additionally, many people who are near the end of their lives do not meet these stringent criteria at all.
The combination of mass incarceration policies and severe sentencing laws over the past several decades has resulted in a fast-growing number of elderly incarcerated persons requiring extensive medical care at an annual cost of $400 million to Pennsylvania taxpayers.
HB 150 will help the Commonwealth save taxpayer money and is a humanitarian measure that will help restore the dignity of people in our Commonwealth in being able to care for their incarcerated loved ones when they are either very sick or dying.
