April 3 (Bloomberg) -- At a recent Lennar Corp. board meeting, most of the questions Donna Shalala received from fellow directors had nothing to do with corporate governance or the financial performance of the Miami-based homebuilder.

``They wanted to talk about Walter Reed and their outrage that American soldiers would not get the absolute best treatment,'' said Shalala, former U.S. secretary of health and human services and now president of the University of Miami.

That kind of anger is fueling the special panel, headed by Shalala and former Senator Robert Dole, to investigate reports of substandard care for wounded veterans at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It almost guarantees that, unlike some other recent high-profile presidential commissions, this one's recommendations are likely to be acted on quickly.

``With these wounded military people, it is a crisis,'' said Bill Frenzel, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota and a veteran of the commissions President George W. Bush appointed in his unsuccessful efforts to overhaul the tax code and Social Security retirement system. ``I would be hard- pressed to suggest that anything is going to happen to this group's report other than success.''

Decrepit Quarters

The Washington Post, in a series of articles this year, detailed how wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan were being housed in decrepit out-patient quarters and were suffering with bureaucratic ineptitude at Walter Reed, the Army's premier medical facility. On March 6, the day Bush appointed the panel, he called conditions at the hospital ``unacceptable.''

Not every commission begins with as much steam behind it as this one. Blue-ribbon panels are a time-honored response to crises, from the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 to the war in Iraq. Many result more in activity than action, with the final report collecting dust rather than changing policy.

``You start these efforts with the full realization that your job is to do the best you can given the scope of your authority to deliver a report that reflects the situation,'' said Connie Mack, a former Republican senator from Florida who served as co-chairman of Bush's 2005 tax advisory panel. ``Then what happens after that, it's beyond your control.''

A Successful Example

The 1983 National Commission on Social Security Reform, named by President Ronald Reagan and headed by Alan Greenspan, later the Federal Reserve chairman, is widely regarded by historians as one of the most successful examples of a presidential commission. The Walter Reed panel shares at least one thing in common with that group: The crisis being confronted is difficult to ignore.

When the Greenspan commission issued its report, outlining a bipartisan fix for the financially ailing system, ``they had about 120 days before they were not going to be able to pay the annuity check,'' said Frenzel, 78.

``Nobody could be against straightening out the situation at Walter Reed,'' said Thomas Saving, director of the Private Enterprise Research Center at Texas A&M University, who served on Bush's commission on Social Security.

The Reed panel's first meeting is scheduled for April 14. Its deadline is June 30, with the possibility of a 30-day extension.

Bipartisan

Like most commissions, this one is bipartisan and includes representatives of constituencies most affected. Shalala, 66, is a Democrat who served in former President Bill Clinton's Cabinet. Dole, 83, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, is a disabled veteran of World War II, and two members of the panel were wounded in Iraq.

The White House and the Department of Defense put no limits on the scope of the commission or its budget, according to Shalala. ``We've been told that we can have whatever we need to get this job done,'' she said.

The solution will likely involve making changes in the sprawling bureaucracies of the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Shalala said the commission will avoid getting mired by focusing only on the care of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. ``We need to get in and out of this,'' she said. ``We don't need to go into the long history of the VA or DoD programs.''

Even if the commission delivers the right answers, a report alone will fix nothing, said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a defense policy research group in Arlington, Virginia.

``This is not going to be solved with a commission,'' he said. ``This is going to be solved by doing three things: putting more money against the problem, putting more people against the problem, and reforming the process.''

Shalala says she believes there's little danger the panel's report will be ignored. ``You can see it in my mail and what people tell me on the street,'' she said. ``You can feel it, and I haven't felt that before on commissions.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at Jgoldman6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 3, 2007 00:07 EDT