Money-Saving Mercy

Not all of Gov. Cuomo’s budget proposals to save money involve new taxes or fiscal gimmicks: One is pure good sense. Faced with soaring health-care costs in state prisons (more than $380 million a year), Cuomo wants to expand parole for seriously ill, elderly inmates.

The key factor: New Yorkers would no longer pay 100 percent of those medical costs. Instead, they’d be borne by Medicaid, whose tab Washington shares, but which is not legally available for prisoners.

Yes, medical parole already exists, but it’s been limited to the terminally ill and those with serious cognitive issues.

As The Post’s Carl Campanile reported, the new “geriatric parole” would be available for those suffering from a “chronic, serious condition, disease, syndrome or infirmity” and who can’t care for themselves.

With an eye on public safety, the gov wouldn’t let convicted killers or those serving life without parole be eligible.

As for the others: Recidivism rates are far lower among older inmates and lower still among those seriously ill. From 1992 to 2014, only six inmates granted medical parole in New York returned to prison.

Fact is, the state’s prison population is aging fast: Nearly one in five inmates is 50 or older, a 46 percent rise over the past decade. And that aging is surely a big reason those costs rose 20 percent in just three years.

Freeing low-risk, ailing inmates makes more sense than spending big to house those suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Credit state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli for first proposing the idea and Cuomo for following through.