West Virginia Health Insurance

State Rankings

While West Virginia may rank among the top ten states for health spending per capita at $5954 per year, according to the Kaiser Foundation, these health expenditures have not produced a healthier state. In 2010, the United Health Foundation ranked West Virginia as the 7th least healthy state, and has been consistently rated as one of the least healthy states for the last two decades.

Even though statistics for health spending per capita in West Virginia and its actual level of health may appear to be contradictory, consider than West Virginia has the highest smoking rate in the entire United States. According to U.S. News, 25.6% of adults in West Virginia are smokers, tied for the most in the nation with Kentucky, and nearly three times as high as the lowest state, Utah, at a mere 9.8%. The state Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 1 in 5 deaths in West Virginia are smoking related. With a low median annual income of just over $40,000, high rate of preventable hospitalization, and over 30% of the population classified as obese, West Virginia, overall, is an unhealthy state.

WV Healthcare

There is good news for West Virginia residents, though. Although their state health funding decreased 6% in the past fiscal year, public health programs in West Virginia still rank in the top ten in the country, meaning that improvement in key health indicators may be coming in the near future. Receiving preventative care and having quality health insurance is essential to avoiding preventable healthcare problems and health risks. West Virginia has several health insurance programs that received high scores in the 2011 NCQA survey:

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