Vermont officials seek Medicaid benefits for incarcerated people, but federal approval could be a long time coming

A hospital bed in the infirmary unit of Southern State Correctional Facility in December 2016. File photo by Phoebe Sheehan/VTDigger Incarcerated people have long been ineligible for Medicaid. When the federally funded health care program began in 1965, it expressly excluded “inmate(s) of a public institution” from coverage. In Vermont and other states, officials are now…