Feature – Losing TennCare

02 Dec 2005, Nashville, Tennessee, USA — Inmates outside their cells, in the mental health ward of the Davidson County Criminal Justice Center in Nashville. A large proportion of these inmates are covered by TennCare, Tennessee’s expanded Medicaid program, which has recently suffered dramatic cuts. With over 190,000 people without coverage, the TennCare cuts are resulting in deaths and extreme suffering. While it can’t be officially proven that the cuts to TennCare have resulted in more prisoners, it is a fact that there are more mental health patients in jail than there are in the mental health institutions. — Image by © Ed Kashi/Corbis