District of Columbia Health Insurance

How healthy is living
in District of Columbia?

The District of Columbia is not rated by America's Health Rankings®, the annual United Health Foundation report that identifies the healthiest states because its highly urban nature makes it distinctively unique from the states. However, the foundation does include 2011 data about the the District of Columbia.

The good news:

• Smoking in the nation's capital has decreased from 20.0 percent to 14.8 percent of adults over the past five years.
• The rate of preventable hospitalizations fell over the past year – from 55.3 to 52.8 discharges per 1,000 Medicare enrollees.

The bad news:

• Diabetes in DC is up among adults – from 7.5 percent to 10.9 percent of adults – over the past year.
• The District has also seen an increase in the number of uninsured over the past year – up from 11.2 percent to 12.4 percent.

more details

• See the United Health Foundation's latest findings on District of Columbia.
• Trust for America's Health ia another source for key District of Columbia health quality findings. In addition, 2010's federal health reform, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), included the creation of a prevention fund to provide more than $16 billion over the next 10 years to invest in effective, proven prevention efforts, like childhood obesity prevention and tobacco cessation, and the site has a report on how it impacts District of Columbia here.

get local health results

State snapshot too large? Get county-by-county health rankings for District of Columbia, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Population Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin.

Does District of Columbia have a health insurance high risk pool?

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Starting in 2010, District of Columbia started offering health care insurance coverage to residents through the federally established temporary high-risk pool program. To find out more about District of Columbia's participation, click here.

Risk pools are state-sponsored programs to help people with a history of medical problems in their family to purchase coverage. These pools are for people who can afford to buy health insurance, but are not able to get underwritten in the private market because of a pre-existing health condition. These programs can vary significantly from state to state in price, benefits and number of people served. Often insurance companies doing business in the state are required to contribute to the pool to keep it in the black. In the best cases, they allow people to be able to switch jobs or become self-employed without the fear of losing their health insurance coverage. Read more about risk pools here.

Non-profit sources of health insurance information for District of Columbia

• The Foundation for Health Coverage Education's mission is to provide simplified public and private health insurance eligibility information in order to help more people access coverage. Here is its guide to guide on how to find health insurance in District of Columbia.
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is tracking the progress of health insurance reform in each state. Its page for District of Columbia can be found here.
• The National Committee for Quality Assurance is a private, non-profit organization that, among other things, provides health care plan report cards for consumers. Search for District of Columbia health insurance plan report cards.

District of Columbia state government health insurance resources

Health reform information for the District of Columbia —  How the District will implement the Affordable Care Act.

Department of Health —  Department of Health doh.dc.gov Phone: (202) 442-5955 Fax: (202) 442-4788 825 North Capitol Street, NE Washington, DC 20002 Designs public health systems, diagnoses and investigates health threats, develops policy, provides education and disease prevention, and administers the low-income Medicaid insurance program.