Obama's Global Health Budget a Mixed Bag

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-02-02 08:45:00 UTC
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Once the eyes adjust to the overall $3.8 trillion sticker shock of President Obama's just-released budget, for global health advocates, the proposal represents something of a mixed proposition -- neither unalloyed good or bad.

First, the good news. To begin with, the budget increases funding for global health initiatives by 9% -- up to fully $8.5 billion. Obama's budget also tries to straddle a more balanced sense of policy, with a focus on building up health infrastructure. In fact, the White House's budget more than doubles aid for tropical diseases, and in a nod to the key role women play in the fight for global health, ratchets up funding for child and maternal health by nearly 30%.

Tropical diseases such as hookworm, elephantiasis and trachoma, after all, are the neglected stepchildren of the global health movement. In fact, they're so darned neglected they get their own acronym to call attention to the fact: NTD. The World Health Organization estimates that one-sixth of the world's population are afflicted with one or more neglected tropical diseases. So kudos to the White House for increasing their attention to the issue.

Other provisions of the budget are far more lackluster.

For one, the proposal cuts support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria by $50 million over levels supported by Congress for 2010. Meanwhile, Obama is requesting only a 2% increase in funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). And for tuberculosis -- a disease that last year killed over 1.8 million -- the White House is requesting an incremental increase of just $5 million over 2010 funding. What's more, the Centers for Disease Control's TB program will be cut by over $1 million.

The ONE campaign has produced a report card for the administration that ranks its global health budget on various counts, which gives the White House two "excellents" and four "insufficients."

So far, Obama's come out swinging with a number of impressive global health goals, such as leading the fight to end malaria deaths by 2015. But if he has any intention of making good on his promises, his latest budget falls far short of those ambitions.

Photo Credit: marcn

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.
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