In good news, CT is 11th best among states in the
number of people who had no trouble finding a doctor in 2015 according to State Health Compare. But CT is also 17th worst among states
in the percent of residents with high medical cost burdens. Depending on how
you look at it, it may be good or bad news but CT is 19th lowest among
states in the percent of state budget devoted to Medicaid, and 28th
lowest in state public health spending per person. Created by SHADAC, State Health Compare is a new online
comparison tool with state-level estimates across 46 measures of health and
health care from six federal agency sources. Categories include health
insurance coverage, cost of care, health behaviors, outcomes, access,
utilization, quality of care, public health, and social and economic factors. Metrics
include costs of potentially preventable hospitalizations, percent of residents
who needed but did not get care due to cost, chronic disease prevalence, weight
assessment in schools, and adult cancer screening rates. Data for most measures
is available for multiple years, allowing trend analysis. Within most of the 46
measures, the tool allows visitors to dive deeper into the data by
subpopulations such as by age, race/ethnicity, and education level. The tool
provides a map, state rank and trend display for each metric. The data can be
downloaded and exported.
