Prisons, by definition and practice, have enormous control over and responsibility for the well-being of inmates. So what is one to make of this headline: California's inmates keep dying from poor medical care?

Even if we grant the literary license to the copywriter who came up with the headline, the details of the story in the Orange County register are not a ringing endorsement of government-run health care: 66 inmates died last year due to poor medical care.

Some of the failures were "spectacular," if I can use the word in the neutral sense. One inmate's treatment was delayed for 8 hours, though he had extreme chest pain.

The report comes after changes have been made in recent years, including the firing of members of the medical staff and the court appointment of a receiver. Another man died after waited in his new cell for two days before receiving his asthma medication. Yet another died of a hernia after treatment was delayed 5 weeks.

Even for some patients without life sentences, entering a prison in the nation's most populous state may end up being like the line from the song Hotel California: "You can check out any time you like, but you can't ever leave." At least not alive.