Posted on: Tuesday, July 9, 2002
East had high costs for health in 1998
By Janelle Carter
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — People in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island spent 15 percent more on personal healthcare than the rest of the country in 1998, mostly because they have higher incomes and costs are greater in cities, the government says.
In the first look at such spending in a decade, the survey found that Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico were among states with the lowest per capita healthcare spending.
"Urban areas in general tend to be higher-priced than rural areas," said Anne Martin, one of the authors of the report by the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "There's also more concentration of population that can support teaching hospitals and other specialized facilities that can cost more."
Katie Levit, who is in charge of national health statistics for the agency, cautioned that the numbers cannot be used to determine if residents of one state are getting better healthcare than those of another.
Personal healthcare spen-ding includes amounts that a person and his or her health plan pay for such things as hospital care, physician services and prescription drugs.
Agency economists conducted the study by examining Internal Revenue Service receipts for for-profit healthcare businesses, the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey of Hospitals and other data on population, wages and salaries. The study appears today in the journal Health Affairs.
In 1998, personal healthcare spending in the United States was $1 trillion. The national average per resident was $3,759. In Hawai'i, the average spending by resident was $3,770.
But in Massachusetts, which led all states, spending was $4,810 per resident. New York was $4,706 per resident while Connecticut was $4,656. Rhode Island was $4,497.
Washington, D.C., had spending of $6,656 per resident.
On the other end, Utah had the lowest health spending for 1998 — just $2,731 per resident. Idaho spending was $3,035 per resident, Arizona was $3,100, Nevada $3,147 and New Mexico $3,209.
