A Healthy State
As I always note, you can do anything with numbers and statistics, so as I always note, take them for what they’re worth.
The personal finance website Wallet Hub compared the 50 states plus the District of Columbia in order to determine where Americans receive the highest-quality health-related services at the best prices. They used 44 key measures of health care cost, accessibility and outcome. The data set ranges from average monthly insurance premium to physicians per capita to share of insured population. Remember, health insurance coverage doesn’t automatically mean health care…that’s the blur we’ve had during the Obamacare debate for the past decade.
Regardless, Iowa ranked 8th best in the nation on this comparative scale, including 6th best in terms of insured adults and 9th best in terms of insured children.
We are 11th best in the number of hospital beds per capita, and 27th best in the number of physicians per capita.
Given our demographics, this is important…Iowa is right in the middle, 24th, when physician Medica-acceptance rate is considered. And we seem to be pretty healthy, ranking 26th in the percentage of at-risk adults with no routine doctor visit needed in the past two years.
And let’s not forget our mouths…we rank 21st in the number of dentists per capita, and 13th best in percentage of adults with no dental visit in the past year.
Now granted, all this was pre-COVID-19, but it suggests that Iowa is well positioned for normal issues, as well as something more extreme
