12 Best States for Health Care: 2023

To anyone who wasn't already aware, the pandemic made it abundantly clear that Americans need more affordable, quality health care. But finding good health care at the right price point in the U.S. is not easy, as personal finance website WalletHub highlights in a new report. Citing the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, WalletHub noted that the average American spends $12,914 a year on personal health care. Worse, Kaiser Family Foundation research showed that higher medical costs do not necessarily produce better outcomes. WalletHub asked several experts what they consider the major issues facing U.S. health care in 2023. "We do not like to use the word 'ration' in the U.S. to refer to health care, but that is what effectively happens: we ration health care to those who can afford it," said Betsy Cliff, a public health sciences assistant professor at the University of Chicago. For Sarah Ahmed, an assistant professor at Providence College, the major issues are a need for more transparency from hospitals on the cost of medical bills and a check on the lobbying powers of stakeholders who obstruct legislation to make health care more accessible and equitable. Karen Ladin, an associate professor at Tufts University, said she is paying close attention to issues related to the use of artificial intelligence in health care and regulatory oversight, state initiatives related to reproductive health, improving health equity, and efforts to address the caregiving crisis as the U.S. population ages. WalletHub noted in its report that the U.S. has improved in providing more health care access for people in worse health, and health care cost growth has slowed somewhat. But these conditions are not uniform across the U.S. In order to determine the best and worst states for health care, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across three key dimensions:

• Cost, including spending on medical and dental visits and average monthly health insurance premiums
• Access, including medical professionals per capita; number of clinics and urgent care facilities per capita; and telehealth adoption
• Outcomes, including infant, child and maternal mortality rates; life expectancy; rates of major diseases; and hospital readmissions

Researchers evaluated these dimensions using 44 relevant metrics, and graded each one on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the best health care at the most reasonable cost. See the gallery for WalletHub's list of the 12 best states for health care, according to WalletHub.