Clean water. Vaccinations. Just about everyone agrees these are essential components of public health. But what about health insurance?

In a post for To the Point, the Commonwealth Fund’s Shanoor Seervai and David Blumenthal, M.D., make the case for treating insurance coverage as a lifesaving public health intervention. They cite a new study showing that 15,600 deaths between 2014 and 2017 could have been avoided if all states had expanded Medicaid — the latest research demonstrating that having insurance coverage can be a matter of life and death.

The 2020 presidential candidates, say Seervai and Blumenthal, should consider this perspective as they continue to debate health care fixes.