I browsed to the following overview of US research on Heart, Lung, and Blood diseases in the US. This report documents the dramatic improvements in cardiovascular health in the US, which they estimate costs the US about $300 billion or about $1000 per American in 2008 (Direct of treatment and indirect costs from premature mortality).  This makes the US look good, until they compare this trend to trends in other countries, which are almost all better, and have also had large decreases in mortality from 2000 to 2008. We currently spend $3 billion per year on research on Heart, Lung and Blood diseases ($10 per American per year). Below are three figures all from this one report.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/factbook/FactBook2011.pdf