I would think that when physicians decide where to set up practice, there are things that they would want to think about other than how much money they'll make.

I would like to see listicles of best places to practice based on considerations other than how much money can be made.

What if practice locations were instead ranked by the fewest and the most numbers of uninsured patients? You end up with a ranking like this.

The top 10 best states based on fewest uninsured (as % of population)

1. Massachusetts (4%)

2. Hawaii (5%)

3. Minnesota (7%)

4. Delaware (7%)

5. Vermont (8%)

6. District of Columbia (8%)

7. South Dakota (9%)

8. Rhode Island (9%)

9. Wisconsin (9%)

10. Iowa (9%)

11. Connecticut (9%)

12. New York (9%)

13. Kansas 10%)

14. Maine (10%)

15. Pennsylvania (10%)

(Nebraska and Maryland also have 10% of their population uninsured).

The bottom 10 worst states based on greatest number of uninsured (as % of population):

1. Texas (20%)

2. Nevada (20%)

3. Arizona (19%)

4. Florida (19%)

5. Wyoming (17%)

6. North Carolina (16%)

7. Georgia (16%)

8. New Mexico (16%)

9. Alabama (16%)

10. Alaska (16%)

11. South Carolina (15%)

12. Montana (15%)

13. California (15%)

14. Arkansas (15%)

15. Idaho (14%)

(Oklahoma and Mississippi are also tied with 14% of their populations uninsured).

Why should the uninsured rate matter to physicians when considering the best and worst places to practice? Because "people without health insurance live sicker and die younger than those with insurance."

What if one were to rank the states based on their overall performance on composite measures of accessibility and availability, prevention and treatment, avoidable hospital use and cost, healthy lives, and equity? The Commonwealth Fund did this, and also came up with an interesting list.

The top 10 best states based on overall healthcare performance are:

1. Minnesota

2. Massachusetts

3. New Hampshire

4. Vermont

5. Hawaii

6. Connecticut

7. Maine

8. Wisconsin

9. Rhode Island

10. Delaware and Iowa (tied)

The bottom 10 worst states based on overall healthcare performance are:

1. Mississippi

2. Arkansas

3. Oklahoma

4. Louisiana

5. Nevada

6. Alabama

7. Georgia

8. Texas

9. Indiana

10. Kentucky

(The next in order of worst to best are Florida, Tennessee, North and South Carolina).

Now, to be clear, I have no beef with where physicians choose to live and practice: the choice of where one decides to live and work is a highly personal one, weighing a variety of factors that are unique to each physician and his or her loved ones. Who am I to judge?

Nor do I have a beef with any of the states listed above, no matter where they rank on the respective lists. I have been fortunate to have traveled to all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and, of course, my home in the District of Columbia, many repeated times, and I love the wonderful diversity of this country, the breathtaking beauty, and the hospitality and kindliness of the people I've met. One of the highlights of my job at ACP is to visit physicians at our chapter meetings throughout the country: over the past year I have visited physicians in Rhode Island, Nebraska, Virginia, South Dakota, Kansas, Delaware, Nevada, and California, and I have trips coming up to Missouri, Washington state, and California and Nebraska again. Universally, I have found that physicians in every state I've visited are committed to giving their patients the best possible care.

No, my beef is only with websites that publish "Best Place to Practice" lists based solely on the economics of practice, not the environment affecting the care of patients. As a result, there is an inherently conservative bias built into those analyses, because by emphasizing higher physician earnings, lower cost of living, fewer malpractice suits, and lower taxes over health outcomes and the percentage uninsured, its rates more favorably the states that are hostile to government programs to help cover people and reduce healthcare disparities, and less favorably the states that have more activist governmental programs to reduce the ranks of the uninsured and healthcare disparities, often requiring higher taxes to pay for such programs.

And by focusing mostly on the money, isn't that a disservice to the many physicians who have chosen to practice in their so-called "worst" states -- even though they may earn less on average?

One Rhode Island internist, a personal friend of mine, when I told him his state was ranked by Medscape as one of the top 5 worst places to practice, responded, "No one asked me. While [our] economy took a big hit, we have a great medical community and collaboration with hospitals, insurance companies, government."

And aren't they doing a disservice even to physicians in their "best places to practice," who love their states but would like to see them do better on things like covering the uninsured?

I know many Texas physicians, for instance, who for good reason love their state and the favorable practice environment it offers, but are working hard to try to persuade a hostile legislature and governor to expand Medicaid coverage to the poor. Expanding Medicaid would, in their mind, make Texas an even better place to practice -- and even more importantly, a better place for patients to get the healthcare they need. And to be sure, many physicians have told me they would even be willing to pay higher taxes if it meant that fewer of their patients would be uninsured.

So how about this, Medscape? Next time you rank the best and worst places to practice, how about looking not only at the economics of practice, but at how well each states does in providing health insurance coverage, in tackling healthcare disparities, and in improving the health of their populations?

Bob Doherty is Senior Vice President, Government Affairs and Public Policy at the American College of Physicians and author of the ACP Advocate Blog, where a version of this post originally appeared.