Tennessee Health Insurance

State Rankings

Compared to its other Southern neighbors, Tennessee is doing relatively well in state health insurance. Tennessee's percentage of obese adults actually decreased slightly from last year. Unfortunately, the long term trend has still seen an increase to 31.2% in the past twenty years, which is well above the national average. Tennessee also has a relatively low rate of infectious diseases in the adult population at 36th in the nation, as well as having one of the lowest rates of uninsured residents in the south at 14.9%. Tennessee health insurance, then, is statistically better off than most southern states, although it still lags behind the rest of the country in terms of overall health. This can be seen in other healthcare outcomes statistics, such as cancer deaths, for which Tennessee ranks 46th, and infant mortality, for which Tennessee ranks 45th.

Tennessee Healthcare

Despite being a southern state, which is a region traditionally lacking in healthy residents; Tennessee is not as bad as some of its neighbors, such as Kentucky and Mississippi. Tennessee boasts the country's lowest binge drinking rate at only 6.7% of the adult population, according to United Healthcare. Additionally, Tennessee healthcare has seen a steady decrease in smoking rates to around 20% of the population, as well as high rates of child immunization and a high availability of primary care physicians. The most positive statistic, though, is that Tennessee is nearly in the top half of states in its uninsured population, where under 15% lacks health insurance, compared to the national average of 17%, according to the Kaiser Foundation. Oklahoma has several healthcare and Medicare plans that are highly rated by the NCQA: