A new study by the financial website Wallethub doesn’t have great news for Alabamians seeking healthcare. Researchers looked data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, among others, to determine which states have the best and worst healthcare. Alabama came in forty ninth in the U.S, including the District of Columbia. Only Mississippi and Alaska scored worse.
The study shows Alabama at number thirty one for average monthly insurance premiums, forty second for the number of physicians per capita, forty seventh for dentists, thirty ninth for insured adults, sixteenth for insured children, twenty fourth for the number of at-risk adults who haven’t seen a doctor in the past two years, forty eighth for adults who haven’t been to a dentist in the last year, twenty first for lowest number of medical residents retained.
The report also singled out Alabama for the being among the worst states in the nation for strokes, heart disease, and infant mortality. By contrast, top ranked New Hampshire has the fourth lowest out of pocket medical costs in the nation. Residents of the “Granite State” also have the lowest month health insurance premiums at just under $500. New Hampshire also ranked in the top ten for the number of nurses and physician assistants, and the most urgent care centers certified by the Urgent Care Association Of America.
The study looked like issues like out-of-pocket medical spending, cost of a hospital visit, the number of hospital beds, the wait time at an emergency room, and the number of ER patients who went home unseen. Along with infant mortality, where Alabama scored near the bottom, reseachers looked at life expectancy, incidents of cancer, stroke, and heart disease, and the number of unimmunized children.