Americans need affordable, quality health care more than ever as we continue to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. State healthcare systems need to administer vaccines and care for those who contract the virus, including new variants, while making sure not to neglect the regular health care needs of their residents.
Finding good health care at the right price point should be a priority for all Americans during the current public health situation. However, even without any extra costs that might arise from the coronavirus pandemic, the average American spends more than $12,500 per year on personal health care, according to the most recent estimates from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That’s a daunting statistic considering that many Americans have already been hurt financially by the impact of the pandemic.
In addition, while health care in the U.S. is expensive, higher medical costs don’t necessarily translate to better results. According to research 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.
Conditions aren’t uniform across the U.S., though. To determine where Americans receive the best and worst health care, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 42 measures of cost, accessibility and outcome.
