With open enrollment season underway, Americans are looking for opportunities to save on health insurance, especially with the average cost for health care being over $10,000 per person in 2020.

In some parts of the country, however, health care costs (i.e. premiums and deductibles) are higher and more residents have avoided medical care due to cost. So, the team at Forbes Advisor analyzed 11 key metrics using data from the Kaiser Family Foundation to find out which states tend to be more expensive when it comes to health care.

And the results are in! We ranked... FIFTH among the most expensive states for health care

Huh, not really the top 5 I was looking forward to.

South Dakota ranked first with the most expensive health care, while Michigan is the cheapest. Following South Dakota are Louisiana, West Virginia, and Florida, and then we have Wyoming comes in fifth.

Scoring 78.63 out of 100, adults in the Equality State were most likely in the nation to report an unmet need for mental health treatment due to cost and those with an individual health insurance plan from the Affordable Care Act marketplace pay the highest annual premium in the nation ($9,620). That’s $1,400 more than Alaska, which has the second-highest average cost.

The families of 16% of children in Wyoming had trouble paying for their child’s medical bills between 2019 and 2020, ranking highest in the nation for this metric.

Wyoming also had the highest share of adults who reported an unmet need for mental health treatment due to cost. Of the 33,000 Wyomingites who reported an unmet need for mental health treatment in 2020, 64.7% did not receive care due to cost.

Forbes Advisor also found that the eastern part of the country is where the most expensive health care costs are. Five of the 10 most expensive states for medical care are in the east, including West Virginia, Florida, Maine, Delaware, and New Hampshire.
The western part of the country has many of the cheapest states for health care, including Washington, Nevada, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Oregon.

See how the rest of the country stacks up in the full report HERE.

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