US Counties With the Lowest Medicare Spending per Enrollee

3,143 US counties ranked by Medicare spending per enrollee, from lowest to highest. First are Copper River Census Area, AK (5,333), Judith Basin County, MT (5,754) and Denali Borough, AK (5,917). The middle one of the 3,143 has 11,477.

What this measures

What Medicare spent per person in a year, for people in traditional Medicare, where Medicare pays each doctor and hospital bill itself. Medicare pays more for the same care where wages and rents are high. This figure takes those price gaps out, so it shows how much care people used, not what it cost locally. It is not adjusted for how sick people are. It leaves out people in private Medicare Advantage plans. Source: CMS Medicare Geographic Variation Public Use File.

For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.

The 100 lowest counties

Every state, lowest first

Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.

More on Medicare spending per enrollee

• US Counties With the Highest Medicare Spending per Enrollee
• Medicare spending per enrollee by US county: map by year and what it goes with

A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.