Health care

Let's start a permanent forum for talking about how to get to national healthcare from the state of anti-social health provision we now have, only taking care of the rich.

Here are thoughts from Time magazine, following the Global Health summit. Common sense ideas about how to allow for innovation AND take care of the most vulnerable:

Daily coverage of the summit from TIME's award-winning science writers
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Thursday, Nov. 3, 2005

"How Do We Get From Here to There?"
As TIME's Global Health Summit comes to a close, some summation is in order. TIME's International Editor Michael Elliott pointed out three thematic C's: coordination; capacity building; and conditionality, concepts that have guided our perspectives and influence our decisions on the path toward global health. Charlie Rose and four panelists then tried to distill the rigorous discussion from the past day and a half—which took place on the dais and the stage as often as it did in elevators and over clinking glasses and plates—and figure out the mechanics of our next step. Here is some of what they came up with:

Do the arithmetic. Set basic metrics, apply resources systematically, set quantitative targets and timetables to focus on measurement and accountability. Ahbay Bang made the case Wednesday when he quoted Niels Bohr and said that things don't exist unless measured. Today Jeffrey Sachs, Director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, made his plea with a "This is my life" statement describing his perennial seat between donors making unnecessary demands and U.S. officials without a course of action.

Treat it like a business. Set a goal, set a target and produce the quarterly reports with the results and deliverables, says Patty Stonesifier, Co-Chair and President of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She and Sachs think together on this point. What else: use attention and credibility to draw in politicians and ministries and hold government to the numbers: the $1.5 billion promised for malaria, the $15 billion for PETFAR.

Take action. A man of few words on the stage today, Ted Turner said he felt a little like Christopher Columbus when he invested $1 billion for the UN Foundation because "he didn't know where he was going; he didn't know where he was; and he didn't know where he'd been." But there's no question that Turner acted upon a desire, an interest, chose a direction and asked the right people for advice.

Go beyond convention. Pat Mitchell, President and CEO of PBS, hit upon a point expressed by a number of participants during the summit when she commended Turner for his recognition that media is key to creating social action. The extra step is critical to moving toward a common goal and Michell feels the media is integral. (As UNAID's Peter Piot said this morning: journalists and priests are important in furthering the dialog in global health.) Mitchell was applauded for her challenge to media to create regular millennium goal reports, or global health updates. Turner's response: That might be pretty often.

Ask the right questions—and make them innovative. Hand held high like a trader on the floor (for the second time this summit), a participant from Hedge Funds vs. Malaria asked, "How do we get malaria on Sports Center?" It's often said that the best question begets another. Is this question #11?

—Coco Masters