Great news for children, parents, and families in Berkshire County and throughout Massachusetts! I know I'm often guilty of overusing the phrase "great news", but trust me, this time it's justified.

WalletHub, the personal-finance experts, recently released a report concerning health care. It's an annual report. Something WalletHub does once a year to keep us in the know. It's what WalletHub does. And they do it so well.

I'm referring to their report on 2024's Best & Worst States for Health Care and the Bay State should be proud. Out of all 50 states, Massachusetts ranked #6 for having the BEST Health Care!

WalletHub did their usual thorough job researching the data, getting all the facts, and giving a very comprehensive look at the results. WalletHub compared all 50 states along with the District of Columbia, so no one was left out.

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They made comparisons based on 44 key metrics including average insurance premium, number of doctors and dentists per capita, share of the population with health insurance, and more.

Massachusetts ranked high enough in several key measures (including #1 in two of them: % of Insured Adults and % of Insured Children; also, #2 in both Physicians per Capita and % of Adults with No Dental Visit in Past Year) to be ranked #6th overall.

The Top 10 States for BEST Health Care:

  1. Minnesota
  2. Rhode Island
  3. South Dakota
  4. Iowa
  5. New Hampshire
  6. Massachusetts
  7. Utah
  8. Vermont
  9. Maine
  10. Colorado

Way to go, Massachusetts! And for that matter, (almost) the rest of New England! It's interesting to see that Connecticut is the only New England neighbor that didn't make the top 10! Connecticut was ranked at #24.

And, because I thought you'd like to know, we may as well take a look at the other end of the spectrum with the states that (for numerous reasons in differing metrics), did NOT perform too well.

The Top 5 States for WORST Health Care:

  1. Mississippi
  2. Alabama
  3. West Virginia
  4. Georgia
  5. Oklahoma

And that's a small sampling of states with the best and worst health care 2024. I'm sure we'll be meeting up again sometime in 2025. Please take a look at WalletHub's website here for the full rankings, data, and statistics.

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