Unnecessary deaths widespread

Hundreds of thousands of Americans die unnecessarily each year due to health care disparities, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report finds.

About 895,000 Americans under the age of 80 die each year from heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke and accidents, according to a Los Angeles Times report. CDC researchers calculated that roughly 20 percent to 40 percent of those premature deaths could be avoided if all Americans had equal access to health care.

If all states had mortality rates as low as the best-case scenario—calculated by looking at the three states with the lowest mortality rates in each category and averaging them—we could avoid about 34 percent of heart disease deaths, 21 percent of cancer deaths, 39 percent of respiratory disease deaths, 33 percent of stroke deaths and 39 percent of deaths due to accidents.