States With The Best Health Care For Seniors

As Americans age, one question becomes increasingly important: Where can seniors find the best healthcare?
While retirement decisions often revolve around climate, cost of living, and proximity to family, the quality of a state’s healthcare system can be just as critical—sometimes even more so.

In this guide, we break down the top states for senior healthcare in 2025 based on the latest studies, rankings, and expert analyses. This isn’t about hype or personal opinions—it’s about facts, data, and measurable outcomes.

Why Senior Healthcare Rankings Matter

For older adults, the healthcare landscape can make or break quality of life. It’s not just about having more hospitals or doctors—it’s about:

• Access to care (including specialists and long-term care facilities and Medicare Medigap Supplement availability.)

• Affordability (insurance costs, prescription prices, and out-of-pocket expenses)

• Health outcomes (prevention, chronic disease management, and mortality rates)

• Support systems (nursing home quality, home health resources, and caregiver availability)

Different studies weigh these factors differently, which is why states may rank higher in one list and lower in another. By combining multiple reputable sources, we can see which states consistently rise to the top.

Best States For Health Care For Seniors - Summary

• Colorado achieves the best overall score (4) because its health‑care costs are among the lowest (category 1) and seniors enjoy high life expectancy (category 1). Access is rated medium because physician density is average. Colorado’s performance illustrates how a combination of low costs and strong outcomes can offset only moderate access.

• Hawaii, California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire
  and New Jersey score very well thanks to strong outcomes (high life expectancy at age 65) and moderate costs. Massachusetts and New York receive slightly higher total scores (5) because high costs are partially offset by excellent access and quality.

• Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island perform well due to strong
  physician availability and decent costs, even though their life expectancy falls into the medium category.

Health Care For Seniors By State Ranked

An aging population places unique demands on the health‑care system. In the United States, older adults are growing faster than any other age group; the U.S. Census Bureau reports that between 2020 and 2024 the older population grew 13 % while the number of children declined 1.7 %, reducing the age‑gap between these groups ¹. As recently as 2020 only three states (Maine, Vermont and Florida) had more older adults than children, but by 2024 the number of such states increased to 11 as Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia joined the ranks ².

In parallel, the health‑care workforce must expand; according to the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment in health‑care occupations is projected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations
from 2023‑2033, with about 1.9 million openings each year due to
growth and retirements ³. 

A shortage of specialists is already evident; the American Geriatrics Society notes that in 2021 only 7,454 board‑certified geriatricians were practicing in the U.S.—far short of the ≈30,000 needed by 2030—and Missouri had just 111 geriatricians in 2022 ⁴.

Choosing a state for retirement or aging in place therefore depends not only on climate and family proximity but also on the underlying health‑care infrastructure. To identify states where seniors are likely to receive excellent care, this analysis reviews official data from the U.S.
Census Bureau, BLS, Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the American Geriatrics Society (AGS).

We evaluate three dimensions: Cost, Access and Quality, assign categorical scores (1 = best, 3 = worst), and produce an overall ranking for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Methodology

Cost:

Cost measures how expensive the health‑care system is for each state’s
residents. The CMS National Health Expenditure (NHE) accounts provide
per‑capita spending by state of residence. In 2020 per‑person health
spending ranged from about $13,642 in high‑spending states to $8,148
in low‑spending states.⁵

The CMS notes that regions such as New England and the Mideast have the highest per‑capita spending, while the Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions have the lowest levels ⁶. KFF’s Health Spending per Capita indicator (based on these CMS data) ranks New York, Alaska, Massachusetts, Delaware and West Virginia among the most expensive states and Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Texas and Colorado among the least expensive. 

For this analysis states falling into the top five for per‑capita spending are
labeled high‑cost (score = 3), those in the bottom five are low‑cost
(score = 1), and all others receive a medium cost score of 2.

Access:

Access measures the availability of health‑care providers. AAMC’s 2023
U.S. Physician Workforce Data reports that the country had about
85 primary‑care physicians per 100,000 population in 2022 and that
the District of Columbia (257), Massachusetts (138) and Vermont
(138) had the highest densities ⁷. The same report notes that states like Utah (66) and Mississippi (70) had the fewest primary‑care physicians per 100,000 people ⁸.

Additionally, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts had the highest
number of active physicians per population, while Idaho had the lowest ⁹. To approximate access, states in the top tier for physician density (District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island and New York) are labeled high‑access (score = 1).

States with the lowest density of primary‑care physicians or general surgeons (Utah, Mississippi, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas and Nevada) receive a low‑access score of 3; the rest are assigned a medium score of 2.

Quality:

Quality captures health outcomes. The CDC’s U.S. State Life Tables 2021 provides life expectancy at age 65 for each state. The report notes that Hawaii ranked first, with life expectancy at age 65 of 20.6 years,
while Mississippi ranked last at 16.1 years ¹⁰.

States with the highest life expectancy at 65 were concentrated in the West and Northeast, whereas the lowest were mostly in the South ¹¹. 

Using these findings, states in the top tier of senior life expectancy
(Hawaii, California, Colorado, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts,
Minnesota, New Hampshire and New Jersey) receive a high‑quality score of 1.

States with the lowest life expectancy (Mississippi, West Virginia,
Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee and New Mexico) are labeled low quality (score = 3); the remainder receive a medium score of 2.

Sources:

1. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/older-adults-outnumber-children.html#:~:text=Ongoing%20growth%20among%20the%20older,7

2. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/older-adults-outnumber-children.html#:~:text=As%20recently%20as%202020%2C%20there,West%20Virginia%20joining%20their%20ranks

3. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/#:~:text=PRINTER

4. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12021397/#:~:text=experience%20with%20each%20of%20the,schools%20lack%20required%20geriatric%20rotations

5. https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/health-spending-per-capita/#:~:text=Wyoming

6. https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20New%20England,than%20the%20national%20average%2C%20respectively

7. https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/data/2023-key-findings-and-definitions#:~:text=,Density%20by%20Specialty%20and%20Location

8. https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/data/2023-key-findings-and-definitions#:~:text=,Density%20by%20Specialty%20and%20Location

9. https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/data/2023-key-findings-and-definitions#:~:text=,Density%20by%20Specialty%20and%20Location

10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK608062/#:~:text=Table%20B%20shows%20life%20expectancy,West

11. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK608062/#:~:text=Figure%203%20shows%20that%20states,in%20the%20West%20and%20Northeast