LACK OF HEALTH INSURANCE HELPS CAUSE 45,000 DEATHS EACH YEAR

Physicians for a National Health Plan - A study estimates nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine in 2002. The new study, "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults," appears in today's online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. The Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993. . . Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease. REPORT