The Billion-Dollar Prison Healthcare Shell Game

This episode pulls back the curtain on Alabama’s prison healthcare system, where billions in public funds flow through private medical contracts—yet incarcerated people report delayed treatment, denied medications, and preventable deaths. We examine how outsourcing care creates layers of deniability, shields decision-makers from accountability, and shifts costs without improving outcomes.

The Billion-Dollar Prison Healthcare Shell Game connects lawsuits, budget data, and lived experience to ask a direct question: when healthcare becomes a contract instead of a duty, who is actually being served—and who is being sacrificed?