Beverly Kearney's life is all about speed and winning. She's the legendary head coach of the University of Texas women's track and field team. Under her leadership, the Longhorns have claimed six national 
As soon as her mother's car pulled away, Cathy Harper Lee always counted the blades of grass on the lawn. She hoped to reach a high number. That meant a few moments alone before her step-father ordered her inside. 
By The Survivors Club Staff
September 30, 2009
One American dies every 12 minutes because they don't have health insurance, according to a new Harvard study in the American Journal of Public Health. That's 44,789 preventable - or "excess" - deaths every year because people don't have affordable health insurance.
"Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease," according to the study which was conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance.
Uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of
death than their privately insured counterparts, the new study found, up from a 25 percent excess
death rate found in 1993.
Overall, 15.4% of Americans don't have health insurance.
"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study, told Reuters. Himmelstein and his wife, study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, founded Physicians for a National Health Program.
