You may not base your next job on what states have the cheapest health insurance. But if you have the flexibility to choose where you live, you can figure in insurance prices that will impact the cost of living in that area.
Survey Says…
An organization called the Commonwealth Fund has issued a scorecard on health insurance systems. This is a private foundation that focuses on health care. The Commonwealth Fund made it a project to find out what states have the cheapest health insurance. Using 32 factors, the Fund rated each state according to quality of health care, cost of services, and cost of insurance. Other evaluations included avoidable hospital stays, and deaths before the age of 75, which are considered premature death.
Of the 50 states studied, the top five are:
1. Hawaii
2. Iowa
3. New Hampshire
4. Vermont
5. Maine
The lowest scoring five states, with the highest medical and insurance costs, are:
1. Nevada
2. Arkansas
3. Texas
4. Mississippi
5. Oklahoma
States with cheap health insurance vary by culture
Spokespersons for the Commonwealth Fund have said that where you live in the United States will certainly affect the affordability of medical care. In determining what states have the cheapest health insurance the top five states, mentioned above, scored 2 to 3 times higher than the lowest 5 states. In fact, if the other 45 states offered the same quality of medical care, with the same insurance availability, there would be a substantial reduction of several diseases in the United States. It is estimated that 90,000 premature deaths (before age 75) would be avoided. These deaths are caused by infection, treatable cancers, diabetes, and respiratory disease. In the rest of the population, 22 million more people would be insured, if every state ranked as highly as the top 5. This would halve the number of people without insurance.
Ratings and Costs of state by state health insurance
When determining what states have the cheapest health insurance, The Commonwealth Fund found that high quality health care did, in some cases, accompany lower cost. This is in contradiction to most assumptions that high quality care is going to be equally more expensive. In fact, the trend they noticed was that in states with quality health care, the ones that had higher costs also tended to have a higher incident of preventable hospital use. Their re-admission rate after 30 days is also higher. The conclusion drawn from these figures is that the particular states in this situation need to pay more attention to prevention, primary medical care, and health care coordination.
Health Insurance is cheaper in states with warmer weather
Generally, if the populace is not healthy, they are not as productive. Quality medical care and the availability of this medical care inevitably translates into a healthier citizenry that is, therefore, more productive. Children learn better in school, and adults in the workplace are more productive if they are healthier. So, if you want to know what states have the cheapest health insurance, you can try out one of the top five.
