No. of people that die each year due to lack of insurance in the US: 45,000 [Source: Harvard Study]
No. of people that die each year due to lack of insurance in the UK: 0 ?
No. of people that die each year to due traffic accidents in the US: 42,000 [Source: Car Accident Statistics]
No. of people that die each year due to traffic accidents in the UK : 3,200 [Source: Dept of Transportation UK]
Cost of insuring everyone to reduce lack-of-insurance deaths in the US: 100 billion per year [Source: NY Times comparision report]
Cost incurred due to the 6.4 million auto accidents each year in the US: 230 billion per year [Source: Car Accident Statistics]
%age of traffic deaths to total deaths in the US: 1.68% [calculation]
%age of traffic deaths to total deaths in the UK: 0.5% [calculation]
A death is 3 times as likely to be due to a road accident in the US than in the UK. Since road accidents have a very high skew towards young drivers, it has an asymmetrical impact on the total life expectancy of a country. The more the traffic deaths, the lower the life expectancy.
Life expectancy rank of the US: 50 [source: Wikipedia reference]
LIfe expectancy rank fo the UK: 35 [source: Wikipedia reference]
Top reason for highway crashes: Driver attitude – aggresive/ignorant [Source: Statistics Top 10]
Conjecture: If we improve driver attitude to reduce highway crashes, it can cover the uninsured with the money saved and double the increase in life expectancy with a zero net sum cost!
