IOM calls for doubling nation’s public health spending

The United States spends more on healthcare but lags behind the rest of the industrialized world in life expectancy and childhood mortality because the government "chronically" underfunds public health systems, the Institute of Medicine argues in a new report out Tuesday. The report calls for doubling federal spending on public health from $11.6 billion to $24 billion a year "as a starting point to meet the needs of public health departments." The report points out that Americans spent $8,086 per person in medical care in 2009 versus $251 in public health spending.