And The Best State For Health Care Is ...

(WebMD)  Hawaii leads and Oklahoma lags on a new state scorecard about health system performance.

The scorecard is the first of its kind from the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation focused on health care.

The Commonwealth Fund rated states based on 32 indicators, including access,
quality, cost, insurance, preventive care, potentially avoidable hospital visits, and premature death (death before age 75).

The top five states in order are Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine.

The bottom five states are Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

Wide Range

The top-rated states scored two to three times higher than the lowest-ranked
states.

"Where you live really matters in terms of your experience with the American health care system," Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis told
reporters at a news conference.

"The wide variation and gaps between leading and lagging states add up
to substantial human and economic cost for the nation," says Cathy Schoen,
the Commonwealth Fund's senior vice president for research and evaluation.

Schoen says that if all states equaled the top-rated states, there would be 90,000 fewer premature deaths before age 75 from conditions such as diabetes, infection, respiratory disease, and treatable cancers. In addition, 22 million more adults and children would be insured, cutting U.S. uninsured rates in half.

Room for Improvement

Every state has room for improvement — even those leading the scorecard —
notes Schoen, who worked on the scorecard with other experts.

"Each of the top states has some indicators in the bottom half of the
state distribution," Schoen says. In other words, though those states may
rank highly overall, they're not acing every category in the scorecard.

Insurance tracked with the states' ratings.

"In general, states that did well in the overall rankings had the lowest
rates of uninsured in the nation, and states that did poorly had the highest
rates of uninsured in the nation," Schoen says.

But high ratings didn't always mean high costs.

"Indeed, some states have high quality and lower cost," Schoen says.
She adds that "high costs tend to track higher rates of potentially
preventable hospital use and 30-day re-admission rates, indicating a need for a focus on prevention and primary care and care coordination."

State Rankings

Here is the list of how the states and Washington, D.C., ranked overall.
States with the same ranking are listed together.

1. Hawaii


2. Iowa


3. New Hampshire, Vermont


4. Maine


5. Rhode Island


6. Connecticut


7. Massachusetts


8. Wisconsin


9. South Dakota


10. Minnesota


11. Nebraska


12. North Dakota


13. Delaware


14. Pennsylvania


15. Michigan


16. Montana, Washington


17. Maryland


18. Kansas


19. Wyoming


20. Colorado, New York


21. Ohio, Utah


22. Alaska, Arizona, New Jersey


23. Virginia


24. Idaho, North Carolina


25. Washington, D.C.


26. South Carolina


27. Oregon


28. New Mexico


29. Illinois


30. Missouri


31. Indiana


32. California


33. Tennessee


34. Alabama


35. Georgia


36. Florida


37. West Virginia


38. Kentucky


39. Louisiana, Nevada


40. Arkansas


41. Texas


42. Mississippi, Oklahoma

By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
© 2007 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved

[jt92202]

My understanding of the Canadian Health Care program is that it is paid for from different kinds of taxes, one being Gas Taxes. When people tell us that at least our gas isn't as expensive as Canada's or Europes I tell them that we don't have heath care taxes built into our gas taxes. This is what I was told when it first came out so if I am wrong excuse my post.

[sy2502]

So in the U.S. you basically have to be rich to get medical insurance, don't you? To go to the doctor it would cost quite a bit wouldn't it? It would be awful to be sick and not be able to go to the doctor if you needed to.
Posted by erasmus6 at 03:22 AM : Jun 14, 2007

Not really, there are government health coverage programs for limited income people.

[prinzowhales]

The WHO ranks the US 37th in health care. And, of course, it is the most costly in the world. Big Pharma has some drugs marked up to 600,000-times the cost. Of course, Joe Lieberman and the other Big Pharman goons don't want you to be able to buy drugs abroad.

[erasmus6]

hawksprings

I was wrong, my husband's employers pay $88 a month and that is for medical,dental and extended care and then he pays 40% tax on that amount.

So in the U.S. you basically have to be rich to get medical insurance, don't you? To go to the doctor it would cost quite a bit wouldn't it? It would be awful to be sick and not be able to go to the doctor if you needed to.

[erasmus6]

hawksprings

How it works is, people pay a certain amount according to their income. Now if you make under say $20,000 a year, you don't have to pay, the government pays it. If a person was on welfare, the government would pay for it. We don't have to pay anything because my husbands employers pay for it, also the extended coverage.
So everybody gets the basic care which covers all doctors visits, test, xrays, surgery etc. Extended coverage pays for the prescriptions and traveling. Not everyone has extended coverage.
But everyone does have basic coverage.

[hawksprings]

Yes Erasmus, but don't people there still have to buy health insurance if they want more extensive coverage than the 'basic' coverage?

[erasmus6]

In Canada, EVERYONE, has health care.

[hypnotoad72]

If you consider the prices, which severely restrict most peoples' freedoms in choice, I'd say we're in a state of emergency. If not a state of decay?