Highlights

• COVID-19 took a huge toll on Americans’ health, directly and indirectly, but that toll varied dramatically by state.
• Hawaii and Massachusetts top the 2022 State Scorecard rankings, based on overall performance across 56 measures of health care access and quality, service use and cost, health disparities, and health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The lowest-performing states were Mississippi, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.
• The pandemic’s impact reverberated throughout the health system in every state, as health care use fell and deaths from drug overdoses and treatable causes rose.
• Federal pandemic relief policies helped stabilize insurance coverage.
• Opportunities exist to strengthen states’ insurance coverage and care delivery systems so they are better able to withstand future health emergencies.

Introduction

Every year, the Commonwealth Fund’s Scorecard on State Health System Performance uses the latest data available to assess how well the health care system is working in every state. We ask such questions as:

• Do Americans have good access to health care? Does their health insurance enable them to get the care they need to stay healthy? Are they protected from high out-of-pocket health costs?
• Are Americans getting […]