A new report says Illinois ranks 36th among the states for delivering health care services to its low-income residents.
The Commonwealth Fund released a scorecard Wednesday on how states are
performing on health care coverage, prevention and treatment of low-income
people.
The report looks at 30 health indicators and finds wide geographic variations
with big gaps between the highest-performing and lowest-performing states.
The report's authors say Illinois could do much better. For example, nearly
200,000 low-income Illinois adults would get recommended care such as mammograms
and flu shots, if Illinois did as well as the top-performing states.
The report defines ``low income'' as under 200 percent of the federal poverty
level. That's about $23,000 annual income for an individual or about $47,000 for
a family of four.
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Online: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/
