Several months ago, Forbes, a respected business and economics publication, released an analysis of the “The Most (And Least) Expensive States for Healthcare 2024.” A striking — and concerning — finding was that health care expenses in South Dakota were the second highest in the nation.
The multiplicity of payers and the differing demographics of populations in diverse geographic areas make measuring and comparing total health care costs across different regions a highly complex undertaking. Nonetheless, the findings in the Forbes article have been supported by other research.
An extensive and very interesting paper was published several years ago by the Health Care Pricing Project. This analysis looked at both Medicare costs and private insurance expenditures in 306 health care regions across the U.S. In that study, private insurance expenditures in the Sioux Falls region were the 14th highest in the nation but Medicare expenditures were near the bottom (275th out of 306). The huge difference can be explained by the fact that Medicare prices are set by the Medicare program, whereas each private payer has to negotiate prices with the individual providers.
