48,000 Preventable Deaths in 2011 Due to Lack of Insurance

Approximately 48,000 people died in the U.S. in 2011 because they couldn’t get access to timely and appropriate medical care. The estimated death toll is based on a peer-reviewed Harvard study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2009, which was widely cited during the healthcare reform debate, that found for every one million persons who were uninsured, there were about 1,000 related, preventable deaths. This is despite the slight drop in the year’s total number of uninsured — 46.8 million from a record 50 million in 2010 — that is largely attributable to an increase in government health insurance coverage, particularly persons covered by Medicaid and Medicare.

Studies have shown that uninsured people with chronic illnesses like heart disease delay or forgo care, often leading to serious complications of their medical condition and, in many cases, premature death, according to Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of public health at the City University of New York, visiting professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the Harvard study. “As a physician, I simply cannot accept a situation where tens of thousands of people die every year because they lack insurance coverage,” said Dr. Woolhandler. “And lest anyone think this problem has been solved by the federal health law, the Congressional Budget Office estimates about 30 million people will still be uninsured in 2022. We should adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward lack of health coverage.”