Health spending in Nevada below average

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, July 9, 2002 | 11:17 a.m.

When it comes to shelling out dough for personal health care, Nevada residents finished in the bottom five in the nation, a study being released today shows.

Nevada spent $3,147 per resident in 1998 compared with the national average of $3,759, according to the study being published today in the journal Health Affairs.

Researchers say lower spending per person doesn't necessarily mean a state has insufficient health care services. Residents could be spending less because of lower costs, or because government assistance programs are picking up more of the tab.

Assemblywoman Ellen Koivisto, D-Las Vegas, said she sees evidence every day that Nevada does not make health care a priority.

"When we get into a budget cut, preventive care programs are the first thing to go," Koivisto said. "And it's probably safe to say a lot of our residents' lifestyles aren't particularly conducive to healthy living."

The chairwoman of the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee, Koivisto said about half of the calls she receives from constituents are health-related.

"Either someone can't afford a service they need, or it's no longer available to them," Koivisto said. "It's discouraging. We do what we can and try and steer them toward help, but many times there's nothing that can be done."

Regional differences also played a part in the study's findings. Residents in the Northeast spend more on personal health care than those in Western states such as Utah, Idaho and Arizona, the government says, due to higher incomes and greater costs in cities.

Per capita health spending was 15 percent higher in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island than in the rest of the country in 1998, according to the survey by the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

"Urban areas in general tend to be higher-priced than rural areas," said Anne Martin, one of the report's authors. "There's also more concentration of population that can support teaching hospitals and other specialized facilities that can cost more."

Katie Levit, who is in charge of national health statistics for the agency, cautioned that the numbers cannot be used to determine if residents of one state are getting better health care than those of another.

"People in lower-spending states may be younger, may be healthier, may live in lower-cost areas," Levit said. "It doesn't necessarily mean they're not getting adequate or effective care. More research needs to be done to unravel all of these effects."

Nevada's high level of personal income may have played a part in study's findings, Martin said. More money often means a healthier lifestyle, Martin said.

Additionally, Nevada has a relatively young population, Martin said. After age 65, the amount of money spent on health care per person triples, she said.

Personal health care spending includes amounts that a person and his health plan pay for such things as hospital care, physician services and prescription drugs.

Agency economists conducted the study by examining Internal Revenue Service receipts for for-profit health care businesses, the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey of Hospitals and other data on population, wages and salaries.

In 1998 personal health care spending in the United States totaled $1 trillion. The national average per resident was $3,759.

In Massachusetts, which led all states, spending was $4,810 per resident. The average in New York was $4,706; Connecticut, $4,656; and Rhode Island, $4,497.

On the other end, Utah had the lowest health spending for 1998 -- just $2,731 per resident.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.