Kohchise Jackson Awarded $307.6 Million After Prison Health Giant Denied Him a $919 Surgery

On April 2, 2026, a federal jury delivered a resounding verdict of $307.6 million against Corizon Health,  now operating as YesCare, affirming that no corporation, however powerful, can profit by stripping incarcerated people of their basic humanity.

At the heart of the case was Kohchise Jackson, a Michigan inmate who spent over two years enduring the agony of a leaking colostomy bag that should have been a temporary measure. A surgery to reverse it cost just $919.35. Corizon refused to pay. Not for any clinical reason — but because their business model was built on denial. As his attorney Jonathan Marko of Marko Law made clear, "The evidence showed the companies spent decades making a calculated decision based on profit that the lives of prisoners didn't matter."

The suffering Jackson endured was profound. His colostomy bag would burst during yard time, spraying feces across his body and fellow inmates. He was ridiculed, abused, and dehumanized. "I was scrutinized. I was treated like an animal," Jackson said, by inmates and staff alike. Despite repeatedly reporting his condition, he was dismissed with antibiotics and misdiagnoses. When a correct diagnosis finally came in December 2016, even a planned reversal surgery was later cancelled because it was deemed "not emergent or life-threatening."

What makes this verdict particularly significant is what it exposed about Corizon's institutional corruption. The company allegedly instructed staff to never write the word "denied" in patient charts, replacing it with "Alternative Treatment Plan," a deliberate effort to deceive courts and regulators. Paid on a per-prisoner-per-month basis, they had every financial incentive to withhold care and pocket the difference.

"A billion-dollar company who makes a profit by bilking the taxpayers faced the music," Marko said. "No corporation is above the law."

Jackson himself put it simply: "Shame on you. I'm still a human being at the end of the day."

The jury agreed. Justice, in this case, meant finally making that truth impossible to ignore.

Link: ClickOnDetroit