Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 5, 1993                   TAG: 9310050219
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Hearst Newspapers
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

INMATES NOT INCLUDED IN `UNIVERSAL COVERAGE'

The National Association of Counties complained Monday that the plan doesn't cover prisoners. Instead, the Clinton plan would require state and local governments to foot the bill for keeping inmates healthy.

Barbara Shipnuck, a Monterey County, Calif., supervisor and the association's spokeswoman on health issues, said counties spend as much as $11.1 billion annually for medical services for jail inmates. More than 90 percent of that total, she said, is supported by local property taxes.

The estimate of $11.1 billion came from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, a Chicago-based association which keeps track of health-care costs in penal institutions. Robert Burmeister, executive director of the commission, said federal law requires that any prisoner incarcerated for 14 days must be given a complete physical exam.

Clinton's plan to overhaul the nation's health-care system contains a one-sentence paragraph assigning responsibility for the prison population: "Prisoners remain the financial responsibility of the various prison systems."

Donald Murray, the county group's associate legislative director, said 9 million people go through the nation's county jails every year.

Shipnuck said the counties also objected to Clinton's plan to require counties to continue to pay for health care of illegal aliens.

Under the president's plan, illegal immigrants would not be eligible for coverage through the health alliances he is proposing. However, they could still receive emergency and other care as they now do in hospitals and clinics run by counties.