We're Not Number 1! We're Not Number 1!

Maybe to ABC News health care is a game that can be won or lost. When they treat health care as something with a scorecard they ignore the report. While we as a jurisdiction may be ahead of the curve none of us as a nation are winning.

Oh, sure Maryland is ahead of District of Columbia and Virginia it doesn't mean Maryland's got the best care in the US. All the jurisdictions are above the norm and better than most in the situation and in this game that's not saying a whole heck of a lot. As you would expect Virginia is better than the DC when it comes to health care. In a game of health its more disease care than health. We're number twenty-six (26) with a bullet. We're number twenty-six! Doesn't just fall off the tongue does it?

• District of Columbia    Overall   -   26
• Maryland   Overall   -   17
• Virginia   Overall   -   22

"The Commonwealth Fund (CF) is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults."

We recommend that you read the original report from the CF. "Among the states that moved up the most in the overall performance rankings, Minnesota rose within the top quartile to become the fourth-ranked state, with significant improvement on multiple indicators. In three states—Arkansas, Delaware, and West Virginia—plus the District of Columbia, at least half of the performance indicators improved by 5 percent or more. Leading states set new benchmarks for 20 of the 35 indicators with trends."

2009 Ranking	Revised 2007 Ranking
1   Vermont     2   Hawaii     2   Iowa     4   Minnesota     5   Maine     5   New Hampshire     7   Massachusetts     8   Connecticut     9   North Dakota    10   Wisconsin    11   Rhode Island    12   South Dakota    13   Nebraska	1   Hawaii     2   Vermont     3   Iowa     4   Connecticut     5   New Hampshire     6   Massachusetts     7   Maine     8   Rhode Island     9   Minnesota    10   Nebraska    11   Wisconsin    12   North Dakota    13   South Dakota

There is room for improvement across all states.
"All states have substantial room to improve. No state ranked in the top quartile across all performance indicators. On some indicators, even the top rates are well below what should be achievable. In each of the states with the highest overall rankings, several indicators declined by 5 percent or more; each also had some indicators in the bottom quartile or half of performance. At the same time, in each of the lowest-ranked states, there were certain areas of performance that improved—some quite significantly."