For its assessment of whereabouts U.S. citizens receive the highest-quality and lesser-quality healthcare services, WalletHub has undertaken an exercise to compare the 50 U.S. states together with the District of Columbia. For the assessment, some 40 measures of healthcare were used. These measures included cost, accessibility and outcome.
With the U.S. healthcare system being a ‘for-profit’ one, cost factors were among the most significant features. These issues are important to the population, given that the typical U.S. citizen spends more than $10,000 per year on personal health care, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The data analysed included the typical monthly insurance premium as well as the number of medics available per capita. A further measure was with the share of insured population per area.
Based on these measures, the best states for healthcare were:
1 Vermont
2 Massachusetts
3 New Hampshire
4 Minnesota
5 Hawaii
6 Rhode Island
7 Colorado
8 District of Columbia
9 Iowa
10 Maryland
The list shows Vermont in the top spit.
In contrast, the worst ranked states for healthcare were:
Florida
Georgia
South Carolina
Oklahoma
North Carolina
Arkansas
Alaska
Louisiana
The list is in descending order, with Louisiana the worst-rated.
There are variances across the different measures. With costs, Massachusetts has the lowest average monthly health-insurance premium at $290. This is 3.6 times lower than the equivalent cost in Alaska, which is the highest at $1,041.
In terms of retention rates, California has the highest retention rate for medical residents at 70.4 percent. This is 4.3 times higher than in the District of Columbia, which has the lowest retention rates at just 16.4 percent.
One reason why Vermont stands at the top of the list is because it has the lowest number of infant mortalities (per 1,000 live births) – with just three. This is three times lower than in Alabama, which has the highest at nine. Furthermore, West Virginia has the lowest share of at-risk adults without a routine doctor visit in the past two years, standing at 9.0 percent. This is which is 1.9 times lower than in Oregon, which has the highest level, at 16.9 percent.
While these figures are internally of interest, they do not always stand-up well globally. The U.S. lags behind several other wealthy nations across several measures. These include health coverage, life expectancy and disease burden, based on data compiled by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, an American non-partisan and non-profit organization.
