People who live in the New England and Mideast regions of the United States spend significantly more on health care than those who live elsewhere in the nation, the federal government reported Sept. 18 in the web edition of the journal Health Affairs.
Nine northeastern states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia) and Alaska spent 20 percent more than the U.S. average on healthcare services in 2004 ($6,345 per capita versus $5,283--a wide disparity partly attributable to the concentration of physicians, the age distribution of a state’s population, residents’ income levels, and the number of people who lack health insurance, say officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Six states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont) had among the highest concentrations of physicians to population and among the lowest shares of the uninsured population, the authors say.
In contrast, states in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain regions spent about one-fifth less than the U.S. average. Read the abstract.
