Health care in the West
The largest Medicaid program in the country, Kaiser's all-in-one model, and the highest cost of care outside New York. 20253 places across 2 cities.
What changes about health care in the West
California runs Medi-Cal, the biggest Medicaid program in the United States, covering roughly a third of the state, and it extended coverage to residents regardless of immigration status. The West is also where Kaiser Permanente was born, so a huge share of insured people get their doctor, hospital and pharmacy from one organization. Los Angeles County runs the largest public health system in the country; San Francisco has UCSF and the highest physician density on the coast.
Costs are high. Northern California hospital prices are among the highest in the nation, driven by consolidation, and a San Francisco ER visit routinely tops the national average. Outside the coast, Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming have some of the fewest doctors per capita in the country, and Arizona and New Mexico depend on Indian Health Service and rural clinics for large areas.
What changes for the patient: coverage is broad but the network is narrow, and whether you can see a given doctor depends on your plan more than anywhere else. Urgent care and telehealth are the default first visit, mental health parity is enforced harder than in other states, and California's surprise-billing and price-transparency laws give patients more paper to fight with.
West cities in the directory
Doctors, urgent care centers, pharmacies, dentists and labs, with address and phone, in each of the 2 cities.