The Best States for Your Health, 2012

If you want to live in the state where Medicare pays the most per capita for home-based care for elders, then Florida is the place for you.  On the other hand, if you prefer the state which does the best job of protecting the health of its children, then head to Vermont.

But if you want to live in the best state for your overall health, then Connecticut is where you want to be.

Connecticut is the new number one in the 2012 Our Health Policy Matters Best States for Your Health Rankings.  Last year’s runner-up switched places with last year’s winner, Massachusetts, dropping its northern neighbor into second.

The OHPM rankings are a compilation of seven independent rankings and ratings of states.  The sources from which the final OHPM rankings are drawn are described below. 

Connecticut made the top by scoring well across the board, finishing second in Medicaid spending on community services, third in the Healthy State rankings and in the percentage of people privately insured, fourth in access to nurse practitioners, sixth in the KidsCount children’s health rankings, 12^th in Medicare spending on community services, and 20^th in in-state access to high quality hospital programs.

Northeastern states all did well. 

In addition to Connecticut and Massachusetts in the top two places, New Jersey, which took 3^rd, and New Hampshire, which tied for 4^th, also placed in the top five.  New York came in 6^th, Vermont 7^th, and Maine tied for 8^th with Pennsylvania.  Rhode Island finished just outside the top ten, placing 11^th.

The two states that broke up  the northeast’s logjam at the top were Minnesota, which moved up two places from 6^th place last year into a tie for fourth, and Utah, which went from 5^th last year to a tie for 8^th in 2012.

New York, Maine, and Pennsylvania all made big moves into the top ten.  Buoyed by top-six rankings in community Medicare and Medicaid spending and access to high quality hospital programs, New York jumped from 19^th place last year to 6^th. Maine moved up from 18^th on the strength of strong Healthy State and KidsCount children’s health rankings.  Pennsylvania, led by a 3^rd place finish in the number of high quality hospital programs, moved all the way up to the top ten from 22^nd.

Washington and Hawaii dropped out of the top ten, falling to 16^th and 17^th place.

Five states including Florida and Vermont shared first place honors in the seven categories.

In addition to topping the states in the KidsCount health ranking, Vermont finished first in the Healthy State ranking.  New Hampshire took first in the percentage of the population privately insured and in the number of nurse practitioners per capita.  California, which finished 23^rd overall, led all the states in the number of high quality hospital programs, and Alaska, which finished 30^th overall, was first in per capita Medicaid community spending.

Florida finished 33^rd overall, down three places from last year.  While it was in the top ten in two categories – Medicare community spending – which it led for the second straight year – and in-state access to high quality hospital programs where it placed 9^th, it was near the bottom in two others – 43^rd in Medicaid spending on community health services and 47^th in percentage of people with private insurance.

The full rankings are available here.

The OHPM rankings are a modest attempt to average rankings from several independent state ranking sources to provide an overall picture, relative to the other states, of both the health of a state’s population and the overall quality and accessibility of the state’s health care services. 

The rankings factor in:

• Public health and prevention
• Access to primary care services
• Access to home and community-based health services, especially for low income and elderly people
• Access to quality hospital care, including general and specialty hospital programs (including mental health)
• Private insurance coverage of the population

This year’s rankings incorporated three recently-released independent rankings.  These were the 2012 KidsCount Health Rankings, the 2011 Healthy State Rankings, and the 2012 U.S. News and World Report Hospital Ratings.  They also factored in the most recent CMS data on state per capita Medicare and Medicaid spending on community (non-hospital and non-nursing home) health care services, and Kaiser State Health Facts data on each state’s prevalence of nurse practitioners and percentage of privately-insured individuals.      

Next Week: The Worst States for Your Health, 2012