Researchers said in a news release that a lack of health insurance might have contributed to the deaths of 17,000 hospitalized children in the U.S. over 20 years.

Johns Hopkins Children's Center doctors looked at 23 million hospital records from 37 states and compared death rates for children with insurance and those without.

Uninsured children in the study were 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance.

Researchers also compared cases of similar diseases; they found that the uninsured were still more likely to die.

All the results are based only on those who were still in the hospital when they died.

"Can we say with absolute certainty that 17,000 children would have been saved if they had health insurance? Of course not," said investigator David Chang "The point here is that a substantial number of children may be saved by health coverage."

In the study, more than 104,000 insured children died, a rate of .47 percent. For uninsured children, the rate was .75 percent.

The study was published Oct. 30 in the Journal of Public Health.