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21
Fortune 1000 companies in the region |
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St. Louis is one of the nation’s leading health care centers. St. Louis is home to two renowned medical schools at Saint Louis University and Washington University. In the class of 2006-07 these schools of medicine graduated 281 MDs and 221 PhDs in Health-Related Sciences (1). The St. Louis MSA had 7,510 physicians in 2006, including 2,264 in primary care, 671 in subspecialties, and 3,473 in all other specialties according to the American Medical Association (2). In addition, the region has a dental school, college of optometry, college of chiropractic medicine, and two schools of pharmacy. Greater St. Louis also has numerous nursing, allied health, and health care technical programs. These colleges and universities along with a diverse range of local health care organizations have made St. Louis nationally known as a center for medical research, especially in the areas of medical devices and pharmaceuticals. The health care and social assistance industry in the St. Louis MSA employed over 163,000 people in 2007 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As of November 2008, the St. Louis MSA had 56 hospitals. These area hospitals had over 12,500 beds authorized including approximately 7,650 medical-surgical beds (3). Affordable Health Insurance Greater St. Louis has comparatively low health insurance costs, especially when compared with other large metropolitan areas. The St. Louis, MO-IL MSA ranked the least expensive for employee contributions for single coverage out of the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. in 2006. St. Louis ranked second least expensive for employee-plus-one coverage and also for family coverage. The St. Louis, MO-IL MSA ranked as the second least expensive total premiums for employee-plus-one coverage out of these 20 largest metropolitan areas in 2006. St. Louis had the 9th least expensive total premiums for single coverage and the 13th least expensive for family coverage. Data on average employee contributions and total premiums for private-sector establishments were collected by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (4). This data documents businesses’ relatively low costs to provide health care insurance coverage to employees in Greater St. Louis. In fact, the St. Louis, MO-IL MSA had the 9th highest percent of overall employee health insurance enrollment (62.9%) out of the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. in 2006 (5). The percent of the St. Louis MSA population under age 65 which was uninsured averaged 12.2% in 2005, the latest data available at the metropolitan level (6). This was much better than the U.S. average of approximately 17.2% uninsured, for this population during this period according to the U.S. Census Bureau (7). Top Ranked Greater St. Louis’ medical schools and hospitals are consistently among the top recognized in the U.S. Click here to see St. Louis' health care ratings and rankings. Sources: |
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