2018’s Best & Worst States for Health Care

By Adam McCann, WalletHub

With the Affordable Care Act remaining in effect and the CDC reporting that over 88 percent of the population has a regular place to go for medical care, the personal-finance website WalletHub recently released its report on 2018’s Best & Worst States for Health Care as well as accompanying videos.

In order to determine where Americans receive the highest-quality services at the best prices, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 40 key measures of health care cost, accessibility and outcome.

The data set ranges from average monthly insurance premium to physicians per capita to share of insured population. Michigan ranked #20th in the study, with the Best & Worst states listed below:

Best vs. Worst

• Massachusetts has the lowest average monthly health-insurance premium, $290, which is 3.6 times lower than in Alaska, the highest at $1,041.

• California has the highest retention rate for medical residents, 70.4 percent, which is 4.3 times higher than in the District of Columbia, the lowest at 16.4 percent.

• Vermont has the lowest number of infant mortalities (per 1,000 live births), three, which is three times lower than in Alabama, the highest at nine.

• West Virginia has the lowest share of at-risk adults without a routine doctor visit in the past two years, 9.0 percent, which is 1.9 times lower than in Oregon, the highest at 16.9 percent.

According to the CDC, 88.1 percent of the population has a regular place to go for medical care. But the cost and service quality of that care can vary widely from state to state. The overall health of the population, more advanced medical equipment and a general lack of awareness regarding the best types of treatment, for instance, can all affect costs.

Today, the average American spends more than $10,000 per year on personal health care, according to the most recent estimates from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That’s about 17.9 percent of the U.S. GDP.

But higher costs don’t necessarily translate to better results.

According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the U.S. lags behind several other wealthy nations on several measures, such as health coverage, life expectancy and disease burden, which measures longevity and quality of life. However, the U.S. has improved in giving more healthcare access for people in worse health, and healthcare cost growth has slowed somewhat.

States with the lowest monthly insurance premiums included Massachusetts, Utah, rhode Island, New Mexico, and Nevada, while states with the highest average monthly premiums included Wyoming, Oklahoma, N. Carolina, West Virginia, and Alaska. Michigan came in at #8.

In terms of physician access, Michigan ranked #27. The most physicians per capita exist in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York & Connecticut; while states with the worst access included Utah, Mississippi, Nevada, Wyoming and Idaho.

States with the most dentists per capita included Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, California and the District of Columbia; while the fewest dentists per capita consisted of Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Idaho and Louisiana.