Supreme Court won't hear Tennessee prisoners' hepatitis C case
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is leaving in place an appeals court decision that upheld Tennessee’s rationing of life-saving hepatitis C drugs to prisoners as constitutional.
The high court on Monday said it would not take the case. As is typical, the court did not comment in turning away the case.
The 2-1 appeals court decision in August found that officials did not act with deliberate indifference to prisoners’ medical needs and it was reasonable to prioritize the sickest patients for treatment given the Tennessee Department of Correction’s limited resources. In a dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Ronald Lee Gilman wrote that officials may not refuse to treat a patient with a serious medical need “merely to avoid paying the bill.”