Death by lack of coverage

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More than eight Californians die each day because they lack health insurance, according to a report released today by Families USA, a nonprofit consumer healthcare organization. An earlier report by the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy research center, estimated that 22,000 of the nation’s 47 million uninsured people died prematurely in 2006 because they did not have health insurance. The new report gives a state by state daily tally.

Uninsured people with diseases such as cancer are often diagnosed after the disease has spread and is more difficult to treat. For people between ages 55 and 64, lack of health insurance is the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.

“Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of people to an early death simply because they don’t have the same access to healthcare as their insured neighbors,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said today.

--Susan Brink