Death toll from Congressional healthcare reform delay: 11,589

Number of Americans dead since the President's original August 7 “deadline” for a new health insurance bill caused by Senate and House delay: 11,589. That's more than twice the number of deaths in Bush's Iraq War, over four times as many as died on 9-11, and in three months one-fifth of the number of Americans killed in Vietnam over a 15-year period.

(As a refresher, a Harvard University study published in the American Journal of Public Health estimated the number of deaths among Americans caused by lack of health insurance at 45,000 per year. That's 123 per day. If the bill is still not signed as of December 31, 2009, that will mean another 6410 deaths for a total since a bill could have and should have been ready for signing into law of 18,000 deaths.)