12 Best States for Senior Health Care: 2021

Related: 12 States to Retire Comfortably on Less Than $52,000 a Year

Medicare plays a key role in defraying the health care costs of older Americans — and those costs keep rising. Recent research from Fidelity Investments found that a 65-year-old, opposite-gender couple leaving the workforce in 2021 can expect to spend $300,000 on health care in retirement, an increase of 30% over the past decade. Older Americans are constantly hunting for affordable, high-quality health care, and where they live matters in finding it, according to a new study by MedicareGuide.com. To determine the best states for older adults' health care, MedicareGuide compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across the key categories of cost, access and quality, evaluating them with 24 relevant metrics. Researchers graded each metric on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the best health care for older Americans at the most affordable price. They then determined each state's and the District's weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank the sample. See the gallery for the 12 best states for health care for older adults. — Related on ThinkAdvisor:

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