Study Names The Worst State For Health Care In America

[ShazzieB]

A new nationwide report has revealed the best and worst places to live when it comes to health care, and the gaps are deeper than you might expect.

The Commonwealth Fund’s 2025 State Health System Performance Scorecard ranked all 50 states using 50 measures, including outcomes like avoidable deaths, life expectancy, and hospital use. The report makes one thing clear: your state could be the single biggest factor in your ability to live a long, healthy life.

Massachusetts took the top spot for the strongest overall health care system, followed by Hawaii, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia. These states had the lowest rates of avoidable deaths and scored high in access to care, preventive services, and effective treatment.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Mississippi ranked dead last, earning the title of worst state for health care in America. Joining it at the bottom were Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and West Virginia, all of which showed significantly higher rates of preventable mortality and limited access to timely medical care.

More here: https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/study-names-the-worst-state-for-health-care-in-america

No real surprises here. It's amazing how certain (red) states consistently manage to rank at the bottom on things like this, and always have, for as long as I can remember. Decades and decades can go by, and the people who run these states never seem to get a clue that something needs to be done? Mind-blowing.

[OMGWTF]

1. Rethuglicans DGAF about anyone but themselves and their evil billionaire overlords.

[markodochartaigh]

2. Very interesting. But,

let's see the outcomes rated for each economic quintile of the population in each state. I think that it is likely that that would show that for the top quintile the outcomes are similar across states and for the bottom two quintiles the outcomes are even more disparate.

[barbtries]

24. i would wager that

you are spot on.

[ck4829]

3. Wow! Horror stories involving those 5 bottom states are up and down in the single payer forum

Medical bills are so numerous in one Oklahoma town that they are actually putting strain on the local court system - https://democraticunderground.com/1033961
People offered to buy medical bills to forgive them in Oklahoma, but hospitals said "pass" and want to send the bills to debt collectors anyway - https://democraticunderground.com/1033804
Patients are being loaded with medical debt in Texas and where is the money going? Not to pay to get rid of cancer, but for a hospital to put its name on a stadium - https://democraticunderground.com/1033778

[ShazzieB]

63. Thanks for pointing these out.

I didn't even know that forum existed, and I look forward to perusing those stories!

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Why aren't Democrats running ads to educate the public?

[Aristus]

5. Educate? You mean in the Red States?

Very funny...

If the red state dickheads could be educated against voting for the very people who are making their lives so miserable, we wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. Comedy would work.

Total ridicule would get their attention.

[generalbetrayus]

8. I dunno about that. Every attempt to have a conservative Daily Show type show has been a miserable failure.

Trumpistas have no sense of humor. No room for it amidst all the anger clogging their tiny brains.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. Not a conservative Daily Show.

Conservative humor is equivalent to racist comments.

I mean, in plain, easy language, show the numbers. Find specific medical treatment that would resonate with them, and show them how they would have a better chance of surviving it in a blue state than in a red one. Enough of these examples, and they'll get the picture.

Bottom line: There is nothing better about voting yourself into poverty.

[Harker]

11. "Conservative humor" is an oxymoron.

Or is it an oxymoran?

[3catwoman3]

33. Either one works.

They are willfully ignorant and proud to be so.

[orleans]

22. "plain, easy language, show the numbers"

lol

i doubt they'd believe any of that.

it goes against everything they believe (trump) and that cuts into their own identity: if republicans suck that would mean *they* suck.

i've seen several podcasters interviewing these morons at trump rallies and such. they'll agree the thing being discussed is horrible when they think it's biden that did it, but as soon as the podcaster says it is trump it's not horrible, they defend him, they say it's fake news and AI

omg.

no one is winning those idiots back.

[Keepthesoulalive]

32. Nothing is going to get the people in Mississippis attention

Why do you keep believing these people can be reached? The poorest states in the union keep voting for republicans and they are satisfied with the result.

[Sweet Freedom]

65. That's not necessarily true for Texas

(And I say Texas specifically only because that is where I live and grieve.)

The republicans have been in complete control here for more than two decades. They gerrymandered the state, closed 750 polling locations (mostly in poor areas), limited who could vote by mail and reduced ballot drop-off locations to one per county. (For Harris County [Houston] that is one ballot box for a city the size of Delaware.) And while I am sure there are people voting against their best interests to own the libs, I think many red areas are red because of the f*ckery and not just the dumbf*ckery.

[mountain grammy]

13. I agree with this

I see MAGA ads daily here in Colorado, a blue state. Damn straight we should be running ads in red states! Now!! Real people, real stories.

[GiqueCee]

20. Now, now...

... the PTB can't be seen to be too partisan. Their corporate bribes – I mean, campaign contributions – might dry up.

[JI7]

29. What is running ads going to do ? They are actually living and experiencing it

And they vote on things like immigration. And they like to believe they live in places in far better conditions to wealthy blue states and cities.

[synni]

7. I can't believe Nebraska isn't near the bottom

I can't even get these incompetents to prescribe some meds for my high blood pressure.

[generalbetrayus]

9. Being # 24 out of 50 isn't exactly something to brag about.

[GiqueCee]

21. They never heard of Lisinopril?

Damn... they are stupid!

[Cowpunk]

62. Because of the blue dot, I would think.

Half of the state's population resides in the Omaha metro. UNMC, in Omaha, is a health care juggernaut. I noticed Nebraska's Covid death rate was much lower than that of most red states when I was tracking that stuff.

[erronis]

12. Let's cite the original article from the Commonwealth Fund

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/scorecard/2025/jun/2025-scorecard-state-health-system-performance

It's very readable without having to go through some other aggregators.

Thank you for posting this great information. My state is right up at the top of the best.

[progressoid]

52. Thanks for that link.

[irisblue]

14. Huh, Ohio is 30 out of 50.

[Karasu]

15. I mean, the entire country is beyond shit in this respect, so finding the worst of the worst is splitting hairs...and

thanks to RFK Jr.'s anti-science HHS, the simple act of living here is becoming a recipe for all but guaranteed premature death in the most awful ways possible.

[Cha]

16. Mahalo, ShazzieB!

[Kablooie]

17. As long as the population keep voting R...

There’s nothing that needs to be done.

[erronis]

18. Cross-linking to another post on this subject.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220445913

The whole study by the Commonwealth Fund is great. Enjoy having access to real scientific data while we can!

[BaronChocula]

19. It's very similar to other quality of life graphs

Red states bring up the rear in many many categories. Red states lag. It's why blue states are providers and red states are takers. They can't even look after themselves.

This is not a knock on progressive people in red states. We know the headwinds they face.

[calimary]

23. Oregon is #13.

Closer to the top than to the bottom. Good to know.

[Buddyzbuddy]

25. Funny how those states at the bottom are the ones that

complain the most about migrants. Actually, their political leaders complain the most. I wonder why that is? The low income citizens haven't had better health care, therefore they have nothing to compare it to. When you're poor you tolerate pain, do without meds for chronic illness and take a wait and see attitude when it comes to terminal illnesses.

When you're poor and white, of course it's those minorities and immigrants ruining society otherwise what's the alternative, me? I'm miserable for my lot in life so I'm voting for the guy that exploits guys like me and hates guys like them. The minorities and migrants are too busy trying to get a job, create a job and catch a break in a world that blames them for everything bad.

Elected officials are both, the blame and solution to better health care. They need to stop looking for the payout and start doing their job. Solve this problem.

[ShazzieB]

66. Agreed, with one teensy weensy tweak.

Last edited Tue Jul 1, 2025, 09:19 PM - Edit history (1)

When you're poor you tolerate pain, do without meds for chronic illness and take a wait and see attitude when it comes to terminal ALL illnesses.

Growing up, we never had health insurance and were seldom taken to the doctor. Everything was approached with a wait and see attitude. Fortunately, none of us had any chronic or immediately life threatening health problems when I was a kid, except for one bad case of flu that turned i to pneumonia and put me in the hospital when I was thrree. (My parents did, but not until later in life.)

I will never forget the time my sister broke her arm and was screaming in pain, and my mom was afraid to take her to the ER for fear of my dad being angry about the expense. My mom called Dad at work, and his response was, "Why don't you wait and see how she feels tomorrow?" (Easy for him to say when he wasn't directly witnessing how bad off she was.) I finally talked my mom into taking her, and my dad ended up being okay with it, considering it was an actual broken bone.

I've been insured for most of my adult life, but it took me years to learn how to decide what problems warranted seeking medical care and get over the fear of being scolded for taking up a doctor's time unnecessarily. Fortunately, I did get over it eventually.

[Buddyzbuddy]

68. I agree with your edit and actually considered that before my final version.

I too had pneumonia about the same age.
Be well, ShazzieB

[James48]

26. No more than two-syllable words.

MAGAts can’t understand big words.

[Wounded Bear]

27. I imagine a big chunk of the problem in those bottom states is maternal care...

From what I'm hearing maternal deaths are on the rise in all those anti-womens health states.

[dedl67]

28. This is one of the reasons for a demographic shift of talented people out of red states

Over the decades, talented and ambitious people move out of states, or areas within states, where the quality of life (e.g., health care) is low. This is a self-amplifying process, because, as the talented and ambitious people move out, the red states become even poorer in the average intellectual capability of their populations, causing the quality of life to become even poorer. This trend has persisted over many decades and has led to the current situation of almost bimodality in quality of life among states.

[ancianita]

30. Great information. Thank you, ShazzieB!

bookmarked

[JT45242]

31. Iowa will be moving down

I live in Iowa and my neurologist, who is also a friend, said that Iowa's health care system is entirely broken.

They gave list 50 percent of their specialists. Almost twenty percent of rural hospital are already closed and many more will cause because anotger system got purchased by a venture capital group.

Probably a lagging effect in the data plus the high density of people in two metropolitan areas (des Moines and the Iowa city/Cedar rapids corridor) are almost the majority of the state population combined.

[oasis]

40. Iowa has Sen.Joni Ernst, self-appointed health

advisor, so don’t expect much progress there.

[3catwoman3]

34. Anybody surprised by this?

None of us here.

[3catwoman3]

35. Hmmmm - Illinois was only 27th. We live in the greater Chicago area, and there is excellent health care...

...from a number of institutions - Rush, Northwestern, University of Illinois, Chicago Childrens'.

Last year, I had to have the tail of my pancreas removed because of something called pNET - pancreatic, neuroendocrine tumor. It was done at U if Illinois Chicago, by a Dr. Pier Christoforo Giulianotti, who is currently regarded as the world's leading robotic surgeon. I could not have been in better hands. Access to high level expert care is why I will never live anywhere rural/underserved.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

37. Northwestern has spent

the last year and a half killing me. 3 strokes, 2 holes in my heart unfixed, mitral valve prolapse, enlarge left ventricle, taken off of Eliquis until just the last two weeks when I had 2 more strokes, seizures, 24/7 dizziness, and polymyositis. All untreated. I loathe that hospital with all my being. I went from a world class athlete in Nov. 2023, to someone that cannot even take care of himself. 4 trips to rehab, live alone, cannot drive a car, no one to take care of me, in aFib, and no closer to getting better. This never would have happened at the Cleveland Clinic. I can only hope to get in to Loyola to attempt to save me.

Sorry for the rant.

[3catwoman3]

46. No apology needed. It sounds like you have every reason to rant.

I'm so very sorry you had such a bad experience.

Was it at the city location of one of the affiliated suburban facilities? My late mother had a very negative experience at the NW affiliate in Huntley, Illinois. NW should be embarrassed to have their name on this building, and I said as much to the Huntley community representative when my mom was discharged. This was during COVID, so during a several day hospitalization, when no visitation was allowed, not once did a doctor call me to discuss the plan of care.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

47. Thank you

I just got home Thursday and they wanted me back in the ER today when I called to make an appointment with my PCP. I just don't want to go back to Northwestern. I will wait until tomorrow when the travelling nurse from Amedysis comes to see me and see what he says.

[erronis]

59. Sounds like your condition is pretty damn urgent. I love the traveling nurses - they are like angels.

Actually, I like nurses in general a hell of a lot more than the MDs. RNs, LPNs, APRNs, NPs, PAs, etc. They are more empathetic and take the necessary time to deal with the situation. Well, except in the ER where they can be pretty brusk depending on what other crap is going on at the time.

Good luck!

[BeerBarrelPolka]

67. Thank you so much!!

[Lonestarblue]

36. It is no accident that most of the states in the top half of the chart are run by Democrats.

Red state politicians care mire about enriching themselves and their campaign donors than they do about the lives of their citizens. Senator Joni Ernst perfectly demonstrated this attitude by saying we’re all going to die anyway. So with that attitude, who cares if you die sooner because we like rich people more.

Edited to add: I think there’s a definite correlation between quality of a state’s education and its healthcare. Red states absolutely do not want effective public education.

[BurnDoubt]

39. Free Dumb!

[dlk]

38. And yet Houston, Texas has the largest medical center in the world

This shows how very skewed our healthcare system actually is.

[Evolve Dammit]

41. Still fighting the civil war.

[mdbl]

42. They are too busy tring to figure out how to get the South to rise again instead of helping others.

The assholes with casseroles and the Dodo daughters of the Confederacy are really helping that cause.

[surfered]

43. One reason might be the States' decision not to expand Medicaid made available by the Affordable Care Act

[MaineBlueBear]

44. Make America Texas is their goal

[Grins]

45. "It's amazing how (red) states consistently manage to rank at the bottom..."

Well said. Because it’s true. Consistently. On almost any issue. I wonder why that is…?

(Actually, I don’t.)

[dedl67]

61. As I noted in an earlier post ...

there has been a demographic shift across the US over decades, actually over generations. Smart, talented, ambitious people tend to move at some point towards cities or states where they can put their talents and ambitions to work. Over time this leads effectively to a brain drain in the areas (rural areas and often whole states) from which these talented people emigrate. As the average level of cognitive skills of the populations in those areas declines, the ability to create healthy, vibrant communities also declines and the quality of life worsens in many ways. That motivates many of the remaining talented people to emigrate, feeding the vicious cycle..

[TomSlick]

48. Arkansas State Motto: Thank God for Mississippi.

Arkansas will always be at the bottom of any such ranking so long as folks vote contrary to their own interests.

Folks here would rather suffer than see "those people" get any help.

[iemanja]

49. I knew it would be MS

and Texas.

[SARose]

50. Yep and Texas Repubs wasted

$3 billion and counting on 50 miles or so of a fake wall against a fake invasion.

Too many Texans believe that folks on SNAP and Medicaid are lazy freeloaders. They just need to get a job!

No one in their bubble ever tells them a lot of folks on SNAP and Medicaid are seniors, children, and, oh yeah, wounded warriors. No one in their bubble ever tells them that WORKING POOR white folks are the majority of SNAP and Medicaid beneficiaries in Texas.

They still believe what ole Ronnie told them about welfare queens arriving in their Cadillacs to pick up their welfare and food stamps.

Funny! I saw a welfare king spent, ohhh, a hundred million dollars or so to rent out Venice like it was the local VFW hall for a freaking wedding while paying a personal tax rate of about 1.1 percent.

Seriously?

[OC375]

51. Relative

I live in a great state for healthcare, yet I can’t get 6 month dental visits but every 9 months, and after retina surgery it’s another 4 months to get back into my optometrist for glasses. A far cry from the Mississippi mortality rates, but seriously… WTH?!? Guess everything is relative.

[bmichaelh]

53. Is it a coincidence, Massachusetts is at the top

Massachusetts is at the top.

They also have near universal healthcare and lowest rate of uninsured individuals.

Coincidence?

[RVN VET71]

55. Ironically, I think, Mitt Romney should be credited for much of that.

That was Romney, one of the last of the "liberal" Republicans. Not Romney, the fascist trend-follower who vowed to destroy Obamacare when he ran against Obama in 2012. Poor Mittens might have won had he not distanced himself so stupidly from the brightest part of his governorship.

From Wikipedia:

Massachusetts health care reform
2006 health-care reform bill in Massachusetts commonly known as Romneycare
mahealthconnector.org
The Massachusetts health care reform, commonly referred to as Romneycare, was a healthcare reform law passed in 2006 and signed into law by Governor Mitt Romney with the aim of providing health insurance to nearly all of the residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The law mandated that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a minimum level of insurance coverage, provided free and subsidized health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% and 300%, respectively, of the federal poverty level and mandated employers with more than 10 full-time employees provide healthcare insurance. Wikipedia

I rank Romney's foolish war on Obamacare in his 2012 campaign with Gore's mindless distancing of Bill Clinton -- the most popular President since JFK both despite and because of his womanizing -- from his campaign in 2000.

[Be Leave On]

54. Nina Simone said it

Mississippi Goddam.

[Javaman]

56. yay! texas!!! we can do it! we can become dead last! we just haven't been dying harder!! die harder!!!!

asshole sociopath abbott.

doesn't surprise me.

[LymphocyteLover]

57. The GOP death cult at work

[OldBaldy1701E]

58. My home state is in the middle, but more into a bad rating than a good one.

North Carolina should be ashamed of themselves for getting such a ranking. The Research Triangle Park as well as Duke Medical... the state used to boast some of the best healthcare and research in the country. But, they decided to follow the greed path (as so many healthcare systems have done), and now they are almost a joke.

It is very sad. I have many family members involved in the medical profession, and I hope they are trying to oppose this descent into predatory capitalism.

(I wouldn't know, since they consider me a joke and a waste of flesh. But, I hope they are doing what they can to fight this.)

[AllyCat]

60. Pretty much a clear line between red and blue states.

Sheesh.

[gfarber]

64. Health Care Ratings

In Mass., health care’s truly first-rate,
While Mississippi just seals its fate.
With death rates so high,
You can’t help but ask why—
Do they never improve or just wait?