As I joined the one-tenth of America watching yesterday's Michael Jackson memorial, I wondered whether the entertainer's death would help speed American health care reform efforts.

Although autopsy reports remain confidential as investigators continue to analyze the cause of Jackson's death, many speculate that adverse effects from a cocktail of prescription drugs killed the King of Pop. Confirmation of these predictions might propel health care reform in America as more realize that even the wealthiest Americans face dangers in the current system.

With the forty-five million uninsured Americans grabbing frequent headlines, many are familiar with the health care difficulties facing poor and middle-class Americans. Yet rich American patients also confront perils in the health care system. These include hospital-acquired infections, as one analyst discusses in a recent NY Times op-ed. They may also suffer from abundant access to prescription medications offered by harried physicians too busy or too disconnected from other providers to check the patient's medical history. This type of over-access to drugs appears to have doomed Michael Jackson.

If autopsy findings indeed link Michael Jackson's death to medical error, more Americans will realize that rich and poor Americans alike suffer under the current health care system. Perhaps this increased awareness will in turn speed systemic health care reforms.

PS. The nonprofit group, consumermedsafety.org advertises itself as the "premier organization leading the effort to prevent medication errors and adverse drug events." If you know of others with a similar mission or doing good work in this space please feel free to add a comment with their URL.