When it comes to living a long life, Hawaii is the place to be. Beyond the beaches, idyllic balmy weather and laid-back vibe, the state also has, it turns out, the most efficient health-care system in the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Hawaiians lived two years longer than the national average of 79 years, benefiting from four decades of employer-paid insurance, generous Medicaid benefits and favorable demographics. Residents of West Virginia, which ranked last, lived three years less than the average, even though per capita health-care spending there was $9,462 compared with $7,299 for Hawaii and expenditures were equivalent to almost a quarter of the state's gross domestic product — the highest in the U.S. 

Bloomberg ranked states based on three weighted metrics scored on a scale of 0 to 100: life expectancy, health-care costs per capita and costs as a percentage of state gross domestic product. The data cover 2014, the most recent available. 

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.