Single payer activists have set up a memorial on the National Mall for the more than 44,000 Americans who die every year from lack of health insurance.

The memorial is being sponsored by Physicians for a National Health Program and Single Payer Action.

More than 44,000 Americans die every year – 122 every day – due to lack of health insurance.

That’s the finding of a new study – Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults – that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The 44,000 dead a year estimate is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine in 2002.