Despite being home to world class hospitals, Texas is among the worst U.S. states for health care, according to a new study, which placed the Lone Star State eighth from the bottom.
Financial platform Forbes Advisory, which authored the report, ranked all 50 states' quality of healthcare by analyzing 24 metrics across four key categories, including Healthcare Access, Healthcare Outcomes, Healthcare Cost and Quality of Hospital Care.
Although Texas scored above average on the quality of its hospitals, consumers here face high healthcare premiums, and it's increasingly difficult for many to access medical facilities, according to the study.
What's more, Texas only has 11 primary physicians per 10,000 residents — the fourth-lowest number of physicians per capita behind Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Montana.
Although Texas prides itself on being affordable, the average annual premium for employees with single coverage through employer-provided healthcare is $1,681 here, according to the study. That's more than average annual premiums in California, Florida and Oregon.
Texas also regularly ends up on studies that place it as the worst U.S. state when it comes to the number of people with health insurance — a situation experts said is growing worse.
Since April, more than 900,000 low-income Texans have been kicked off the state's Medicaid program. The state began auditing its Medicaid program in April, reevaluating people for eligibility. Backlogs of applications for Medicaid in Texas and prolonged verification wait times have led Texas Democrats to call on the federal government for an audit of the program.
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Texas near bottom of U.S. states for health care, study finds
Although Texas has above-average medical facilities, they're increasingly hard to access, according to the report.
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