The residents of Colorado are working hard to improve our healthcare system throughout the state. A recent study ranked Colorado number 11 in the US based on several different variables, however, health care costs in Colorado were ranked 47. Read the article below recapping the results from the survey and other placement factors.nnA new study places Colorado’s health care system just outside the top 10 in the nation.nnThe study, released Monday by financial website WalletHub, ranked Colorado No. 11 on its list of best and worst states for health care.nnMinnesota, Massachusetts and Rhode Island took the top three spots, with Mississippi, North Carolina and Alaska coming in at the bottom of the list.nnThe report compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 43 measures of cost, accessibility and outcome, using data sets ranging from average monthly health insurance premium costs, hospital beds per capita, cancer and heart disease rates, and percentage of insured people ages 19 to 64.nnColorado ranked No. 47 in terms of health care costs for its residents, which considered factors such as average hospital expenses per inpatient day at a community hospital and average monthly health insurance premium costs.nnThe Centennial State ranked 12th in access to health care — which took into account the number of hospital beds per capita and the quality of the state’s public hospital system — and No. 3 in health care outcomes, which included life expectancy and infant, child and maternal mortality rates.nnToday, the average American spends more than $10,000 per year on personal health care, or about 17.9 percent of the U.S. GDP, according to the most recent estimates from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.nn“But higher costs don’t necessarily translate to better results. The U.S. lags behind several other wealthy nations on several measures, such as health coverage, life expectancy and disease burden,” the study states. “However, the U.S. has improved in giving more healthcare access for people in worse health, and health care cost growth has slowed somewhat.”nnOriginal article published on csbj.com.
