“By the year 2030, there will be upward of 400,000 elderly prisoners — nearly a third of the projected total penal population. State and federal prisons spend an estimated $16 billion taxpayer dollars a year keeping elderly convicts in the clink…. Nearly a quarter of that price tag – roughly $3 billion taxpayer dollars annually – is devoted to providing health care to sick or drying prisoners. Although prison budgets and balance sheets vary state-to-state, certain jurisdictions offer striking evidence of the immense cost of medical care for elderly prisoners.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/01/us-care-elderly-prisoners_n_3530697.html