U.S. Northeast tops health spending: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who live in the U.S. Northeast, including New England and the mid-Atlantic states, have significantly higher health care bills than other Americans, federal researchers said on Tuesday.

Insurers and individuals spent on average $1,000 more per person in 2004 -- $6,345 per capita versus $5,283 per capita in the other states, the team at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found.

The researchers said it is not entirely clear why but noted that many of the states have high average incomes, as well as lots of physicians.

"We found that the New England and Mideast regions claimed eight of the top 10 states in per capita personal health care spending in 2004, while the states with the lowest per capita spending were typically located in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain regions," the researchers wrote in their report, published in the journal Health Affairs.

CMS economist Anne Martin and colleagues used official government estimates of U.S. health spending, taken from providers of health care services and supplies ranging from hospitals and clinics to pharmacies.

This included money spent by insurers -- including Medicare and Medicaid -- as well as private plans and some out-of-pocket expenses.

They found the highest spending in Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Alaska.

Utah, Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico and Nevada had the lowest spending, at about $4,244 per person in 2004. This may be because people have to travel farther to see doctors and hospitals, the researchers said.

They said states with generous Medicaid programs also tended to have the highest spending. Massachusetts spent an average of $9,150 in 2004 on each client of Medicaid -- the state-federal health insurance program for the poor.

In New York, where per capita Medicaid spending was $10,173, the program accounted for nearly a third of all health spending in the state.