Panel Established for Global Healthcare

Reported today in The Boston Globe, a senior level committee has been give $10B to establish a plan for global health care. According to the article, the bipartisan Commission on Smart Global Health Policy, whose members include Senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Olympia Snowe of Maine, was given a mandate yesterday to identify a more comprehensive strategy for spending the estimated $10 billion dedicated each year to assisting the most disease-plagued nations.
Retired Navy Admiral William J. Fallon is heading up the initatitive and the group plans to show their ideas early next year to President Obama. The commission's 26 members include several members of Congress; former top diplomats and intelligence officials such as John Negroponte; leaders of nonprofits such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala; the president of Barnard College; and executives from major corporations such as Exxon Mobil, Coca Cola, and drug giant Merck and Co.