Enviable Health Benefits Behind Bars

An armed robber gets a million-dollar heart transplant. A murderer awaits a cancer procedure after having a $160,000 quadruple bypass operation. It's enough to make the law-abiding people whose taxes footed the bill wonder who is getting punished.

Steve Kroftexplores the ethical quandary posed by prisoners' rights to health care in a 60 Minutes report.

Steve Green of the California Corrections Department says he had no choice but to allow the heart transplant on the inmate, whose name he will not release. "He sued. The U.S. District Court ruled that he was entitled to the transplant. So we have direct court rulings saying that we will meet medical needs of our inmates," he says.

This angers Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, whose father with heart trouble had his health insurance cancelled at one point. "What's the message here to the public? ... You had two robbery convictions, you're in jail, you get sick, you're going to the top of the [transplant waiting] line. That's the problem here," says Lopez.

Lopez cites a man who was told he needed $150,000 he didn't have to get on the list for a heart transplant. "Now, here's a guy who works for a living and has three kids. Why should he have to give up everything he's worked for while somebody in prison is getting the best treatment available?" asks Lopez.

Lopez acknowledges the ethical quandary posed by his reasoning, but believes it's just "common sense" to defer to the law-abiding citizens over the criminal, especially when it comes to getting on a transplant list.

But medical ethicist Dr. Lawrence Schneiderman says it's not that simple. "Now we're starting on the slippery slop. What about people who get a parking ticket?" he asks. Schneiderman says society has made its choice on who gets what kind of care, based mostly on income. "Because we have such a hodgepodge of health care coverage and not universal health care coverage, society has decided who can afford it or were lucky enough to have the right kind of job... or to be lucky enough to be in prison," he tells Kroft.

It's much more simple to this lucky man. "I'm supposed to be going out anytime within the next two weeks to have a bowel re-section," says Denton Johns, a double murderer who has diabetes and colon cancer. "When I was at Salinas Valley, they did a $160,000 quadruple bypass on me," he tells Kroft.

Johns says he was surprised about the million-dollar transplant, but people shouldn't be shocked. "They're saying 'Oh, our tax dollars are going to pay for it.' We're in the care of the state and the state has to take care of us and do what they can to keep us alive."