Request By:
Honorable James S. Secrest
Allen County Attorney
210 West Main Street
Box 35
Scottsville, Kentucky 42164
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You seek a clarification of OAG 83-225, written to you concerning the county's payment of medical expenses of an indigent county jail prisoner.
Since the prisoner was charged with violating state statutes, the state must pay the medical expenses, subject to the maximum permitted under KRS 441.010(3)(b), and subject to the assumption that the medical care could not be delayed. See KRS 441.010(3). Under KRS 441.005(3) "unit of government" means that unit of government whose law a prisoner is charged with violating. Here the unit of government is the State of Kentucky, which is subject to the limitation expressed in KRS 441.010(3)(b), and subject to the condition that the medical care was not postponable (after confinement) without hazard to the prisoner's health, pursuant to KRS 441.010(3).
The total medical bill was $2,318.64. The state, through the KMA program, paid the medical center $1,089.00, which we assume was the maximum possible under that program. The sum of $2,318.64 less $1,089.00 leaves a balance of $1,229.64. However, as we said in OAG 83-225, the county is now required to pay only $1,089.00 of that remaining balance, because of the express and ordinary meaning of the language of KRS 441.010(3)(b).
Old Lewis Hunter Distillery Co. v. Kentucky Tax Commission, 302 Ky. 68, 193 S.W.2d 464 (1946).
Although KRS 441.010(3) places a responsibility upon the state to pay for an indigent jail prisoner's medical care where he is charged with violating state law, the state is subject to the money amount limitations involved in the state medical assistance act. See KRS 205.510 et seq. Where the state's payment on the medical bill leaves a balance unpaid, the county has to pay for the residual part of the bill, subject to the maximum principle expressed in KRS 441.010(3)(b). Thus the county is required to pay only $1,089.00 of the remaining balance. See, as relates to the county's residual obligation,
City of Richmond v. Madison County Fiscal Court, 290 Ky. 293, 161 S.W.2d 58 (1942); City of Paducah v.
McCracken City of Paducah v. McCracken County, 305 Ky. 539, 204 S.W.2d 942 (1947); and KRS 67.083 (3) (d), KRS 67.080(2)(d).
Under question number 2, in OAG 83-225, the employment of the prisoner on the county road crew has no bearing on the county's responsibility for paying an indigent prisoner's medical expenses, as outlined above. His being a county jail prisoner and indigent are the significant factors.