Virginia

Health Policy rankings

Health indicators	Rank
Population	7,347,572
Number of insurance mandates	55
Death rate per 100,000	809.2
Percent of adults overweight or obese	58.90%
Percent of adults who have visited a dentist in the last 12 months	73.50%
Number of births (2004)	103,933

Ranking public policy	Rank
Overall health ownership rank	13
Private health insurance rank	29
Medical tort rank	7
Provider burden of regulation rank	30
Government health care rank	13

Sources

Policy ranks are from the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, published by the* Pacific Research Institute.
Health indicators are from State Health Facts, a service of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Number of insurance mandates comes from Health Insurance Mandates in the States 2007 (PDF), a publication of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance.

State Policy Network members

State offices

Virginia County Attacks Smokers, Diners, and Cars

Showing that all-too-typical desire of politicians to control all aspects of our lives, Arlington County Board Chairman J. Walter Tejeda announced plans to encourage restuarants to ban smoking and trans-fats. Thankfully Virgina does not allow counties the authority to ban such things but Tejeda vows to use his authority to urge business owners to obey his whims. He also wants to promote something he calls a "car free diet."

This type of "government knows best" thinking is becoming more and more common. As a Marylander I can usually look to our neighbors in Virginia for public policy that is more sensible than our own. If Tejeda's brand of leadership is a harbinger of things to come, though, Virginia liberty is in for a shellacking.

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