Report claims 18 deaths a week are due to lack of health insurance in Ill.

CHICAGO - More than 18 working-age Illinoisans die each week due to a lack of health insurance, according to a report released Tuesday by a health care advocacy group. A lack of insurance can lead to an early death in a number of ways, according to Ron Pollack, executive director of the nonprofit group Families USA. The uninsured often go without preventive care, or forgo screenings and tests that could detect life-threatening illnesses, he said. They're less likely to have a regular source of medical care, and so sometimes delay getting treatment until an illness or pain has gotten severe. And they wait to fill prescriptions - including medications that could help manage conditions such as asthma, diabetes and heart disease - until they have enough money to fill them, he said. “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 health care as their insured neighbors,” Pollack said. Families USA has released similar studies for all 50 states and said the reports are the first to look at deaths at the state level stemming from a lack of health insurance. During 2006, the group estimates, 960 Illinoisans between the ages of 25 and 64 died because they lacked health insurance. Illinois became the first state in the nation to promise health insurance coverage for all children, through a program called All Kids that became law in late 2005.