A group that favors health care reform released disturbing estimates Thursday on premature deaths among people who lack insurance. The consumer group, Families USA, said the failure to pass health reforms will lead to 34,600 premature deaths in California for people ages 25 to 64 in the next 10 years. The report ‘Lives on the Line: The Deadly Cost of Delaying Reform’ said it used the methods of previous studies on the perils of living without health insurance in the United States. The Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, found that 18,000 uninsured Americans died prematurely in 2000. The institute’s series of studies contested notions that the uninsured are well cared for by emergency services and government programs. Its 2002 study reported that people without insurance are sick more often, receive medical care that is too little or too late and receive poorer care in hospitals. The Urban Institute, which focuses research on social and economic issues, estimated 22,000 deaths in 2006 among uninsured Americans with limited access to health care. Families USA said the national death toll was 290,000 between 1995 and 2009, the 15-year period when […]