States that spend the most Medicare money on patients actually provide lower-quality healthcare than those that spend less, according to a study published recently in Health Affairs by economists at Dartmouth College.

Louisiana, Texas and California were the top three most wasteful Medicare states, Forbes.com found, using the Dartmouth data combined with quality ranking from a study from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The quality rankings, determining if patients got basic care and medication, ranged from best at 1 to worst at 51.
 
The Dartmouth study showed that the states that spend the most money per Medicare patient tend to give lower-quality health care than states that spent less. This inefficiency in spending is a significant contributor to rising national medical costs.