US public health funding is dropping

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/pfan-dhl111015.php

Public Release: 12-Nov-2015
Despite health law's bow to prevention, US public health funding is dropping: AJPH study
Researchers say per capita public health spending has dropped 9.3 percent since 2008, reflecting a $40.2 billion loss to disease prevention and related programs from 2009 through 2014
Physicians for a National Health Program

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Dr. Himmelstein, a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health at Hunter College and lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School commented: "Obamacare was supposed to add $15 billion to public health funding. But in 2012 Congress cut that by $6.25 billion, and sequestration imposed further cuts in 2013. This year, public health will get less than half of the $2 billion promised by the ACA. And state and local government public health spending has also fallen, even while their other health expenditures have continued to rise."

Dr. Woolhandler, a primary care doctor in New York City, professor at CUNY's public health school at Hunter College and lecturer at Harvard Medical School, said: "Our health care system is dangerously out of balance. We're spending more and more treating disease, but less and less to prevent it."

She continued: "We're breaking the bank paying for hepatitis C and cancer drugs, while drug abuse prevention, needle exchange programs and anti-smoking campaigns are starved for funds."

The authors note that if the nation's inflation-adjusted public health funding had remained at the 2008 level ($281 per capita), an additional $40.2 billion would have been devoted to public health between 2009 and 2014.