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Article published Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Ohio deaths tied to insurance lack

About 750 working-age Ohioans died in 2006 because they lacked health insurance and could not afford medications or preventative care, according to a report released yesterday.

Because they often skip checkups, screenings, and other measures that could diagnose cancer or other diseases and increase their chances of survival, two working-age Ohioans without health insurance die daily, according to Families USA, a nonprofit organization that advocates affordable health care for all.

Between 2000 and 2006, more than 5,100 Ohioans aged 25 and 64 died because they did not have health insurance, Families USA estimated.

Nearly 13 percent of Ohio's 6.1 million residents between the ages of 25 and 64 did not have health insurance in 2006, when 750 of them died, it said.

Families USA is releasing state-specific estimates on the number of residents who die because they lack health insurance.

Nearly two Michigan working-age residents die daily because they lack health insurance, or about 650 people in 2006, the organization estimated.