Is healthcare broken in the old south?

[HereSince1628]

Granted in any data there will be some scores above and some scores below the measure of central tendency, but with some expected noise, there is a definite geographic thing going on in this dataset.

Clearly there are many socio-economic issues that are correlates to health...but the overall geographic impression is not good.



http://aolsvc.health.webmd.aol.com/content/article/76/90326.htm?DEST=WebMD&contentSRC=aomain

What's the State of Your State's Health?
1. Minnesota, New Hampshire Rated Healthiest, Mississippi Ranks at Bottom

By Jennifer Warner WebMD Medical News

Each state was assigned a health score based on many different criteria.
1. 2003 Overall Health Score Rankings:
Rank State Score
1 Minnesota 24.3
1 New Hampshire 24.3
3 Utah 19.5
4 Vermont 19.0
5 Massachusetts 16.3
6 Connecticut 14.7
7 Iowa 14.6
8 Maine 13.8
9 Colorado 13.7
10 Hawaii 13.4
11 Washington 12.9
12 North Dakota 12.5
13 Rhode Island 12.1
14 Wisconsin 11.7
15 South Dakota 11.5
16 Nebraska 10.1
17 Idaho 9.0
18 New Jersey 8.9
19 Oregon 8.8
20 Kansas 8.3
21 Virginia 6.9
22 California 5.7
23 Wyoming 5.2
24 Pennsylvania 4.1
25 Montana 2.8
26 Ohio 2.2
27 Indiana 1.9
28 Michigan 1.8
29 Maryland 0.8
30 Illinois 0.4
31 New York -0.5
32 Arizona -2.1
33 Missouri -2.7
34 Delaware -3.4
35 Texas -3.8
36 Nevada -4.6
36 North Carolina -4.6
38 Alaska -5.5
39 Kentucky -7.0
40 New Mexico -7.5
41 Georgia -7.6
42 Florida -10.8
43 Alabama -11.1
44 West Virginia -11.3
45 Oklahoma -12.1
46 Tennessee -13.2
47 Arkansas -14.2
48 South Carolina -15.5
49 Louisiana -19.5
50 Mississippi -22.0

[morningglory]

1. I just started my crummy job after long layoff, and got a full paycheck.

Gross pay $806
taxes, fica $150 or so (I do not mind)
health insurance almost $400
take home $257
Got to be some gouging somewhere.

[HereSince1628]

2. Ouch...what part of the world?

.

[Bandit]

3. Is that a week or bi-weekly or a month's pay?

I can't believe they would charge you that much for health insurance every week.

[Wapsie B]

4. The problem I have is that

states at the bottom of the list are getting so much higher reimbursement on Medicare procedures. This is crazy. It should be completely reversed.

Please don't take this as another South-bashing post. I would just like to see states who do promote good health be rewarded for their efforts.