The Affordable Care Act is “a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals.” “There is some uncertainty about these estimates,” one official said. “In some cases, the literature [on excess mortality] is better than others. But it is quite conceivable that 1.3 million fewer people are being harmed.” The report makes a similar point. “The estimate of deaths averted is less precise than the estimate of the size of the reduction in HAC [Hospital Acquired Condition] rates,” the report says. “We directly estimate the size of the reduction in HAC rates but rely on analysis from other researchers of the complex relationship between HACs and mortality to extrapolate the impact of the reduction in HACs on deaths averted.” At the very least, “tens of thousands” of deaths were averted, the report says.