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Tommy Thompson: “Medicare's got problems, Medicaid's got problems, and we…”

Featuring: Tommy Thompson, Conservative | Former Candidate, U.S. Senate Wisconsin

Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson

Published July 30, 2025 | Video Starts at 11:09

It was a great team effort and it made things work. And that's what we have to do in America. Medicare's got problems, Medicaid's got problems, and we have to fix it. We have to do it. And if, you know, we completely redid Medicare and we had Part D, which was a tremendous success. (11:09–11:14)

CLAIM

Asserts that Medicare and Medicaid have problems that need fixing.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Tommy Thompson

“25% of the people never take their medicines.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 15:23-15:27
“50% of the people get hung up on drugs because they go to a doctor who prescribes too much painkilling medicines.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 15:26-15:44
“Nine minutes for a doctor, that's all you get.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 16:20-16:22
“Medicare is going broke in what, 10 years.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 18:36-18:40
“93% of the money on healthcare goes to get you well after you get sick, and less than 7% keep you well in the first place.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 45:28-45:37
“We were there before anybody else with the federal government, [Howard Zucker and Tommy Thompson], the team to help out whenever we could.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 05:03-05:11
“We said, there's going to be mental health problems. And we turn that to our assistant, Charlie, and says, you gotta set up a conference.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 06:22-06:32
“It was set up for November 19 that year, about two months later. National Conference on Mental Health to help out New York and the citizens…”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 06:35-06:49
“We completely redid Medicare and we had Part D, which was a tremendous success.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 11:15-11:23
“Badger Care was an idea that I came up with and that was probably, I think probably the best health care for low income people in the…”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 12:25-12:36
“Badger Care...is still in existence, and it's still working.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 12:25-12:36
“Now [the Global Fund] is an $8 billion operation.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 13:29-44:23
“We don't have enough doctors, don't have enough nurses. We certainly don't have enough technicians.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 14:39-14:44
“You have to wait sometimes six months, nine months to see a specialist.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 16:22-16:26
“Public health at the state level was just being starved.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 20:47-20:52
“After anthrax, the federal government and the president said, do whatever you need.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 22:13-22:20
“We have to rebuild the state's public health system.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 22:24-22:27
“For many years thereafter, they were putting money into public health.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 22:29-22:33
“They're taking away money from public health.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 22:34-22:37
“The states have got to be the first line of protection for our public health system.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 22:40-22:48
“The public health system has already got big gaps in it.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 23:22-23:27
“D.A. Henderson was the leader in being able to stamp out smallpox.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 24:07-49:17
“I built a command center. And at 9:30 every morning during COVID I had every campus report into me.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 27:08-27:16
“The thing that I'm the most concerned about is food safety.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 27:58-28:02
“I still am absolutely worried about the sanctity and the safety of food that we're importing from all over the world.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 28:05-28:13
“I don't see anybody really looking at how do you protect the importation of food.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 29:02-29:06
“I'm sure that there is need for some reductions. No, I'll never accept the statement that we can't cut anything.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 29:54-30:07
“Healthcare is not stagnant. Healthcare changes. We have different viruses, we have different bacterias.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 30:35-30:44
“The federal government needs to be able to inculcate the professors and researchers from the university.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 33:40-33:49
“Universities are too insular, Howard, and they've got to be much more cooperative with government units.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 33:52-34:01
“Global health was something that I really loved because I thought America could really show its leadership.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 36:21-36:28
“We did that through our Global Health Fund and through the Millennium Fund.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 36:28-36:34
“Women had to come in and bring their own sutures when they go to operate.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 37:12-37:17
“Doctors could not deliver maternal care to other women.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 37:18-37:23
“We came back home, we raised the money, we remodeled the hospital.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 37:35-37:40
“USAID would. Funded some crazy stuff and they shouldn't fund it.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 40:44-40:49
“This administration, and I think rightly so, wants to save money and wants things to be more efficient.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 40:54-41:03
“America has to be part of [the World Health Organization].”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 42:27-42:29
“United States cannot be by itself. We have to be able to have a coordination on health care and global health throughout the world.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 43:09-43:18
“People have got to know they gotta, they've gotta stop smoking, they gotta start exercising, they can't take in so much sugar, and they've…”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 47:28-47:45
“You got to get into the K12, you got to get into the classroom. That's where the childhood obesity has got to be.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 48:25-48:32
“The direct causes of all of this, of course, is diabetes, and that's just an epidemic in our society.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 48:41-48:49
“I'm a big believer in vaccines.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 49:01-49:03
“We were able to get a vaccine for Covid in less than 12 months.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 49:05-49:09
“Measles are starting to come back because I don't think people are vaccinating their kids enough.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 49:18-49:23
“We're not educating the young people of our society enough to go into all of the healthcare fields.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 54:45-54:53
“Businesses should be setting up their own clinics and should be sponsoring individuals that are in their community to go on to medical…”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 55:49-55:59
“Congress has a tendency to only take a look at things that really are causing them problems back in their districts.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 58:47-58:58
“We don't have the Teddy Kennedys and the, and the Senator Buys and Senator Laxalls and Orrin Hatches working together on big subjects and…”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 59:06-59:24
“There's nobody out there in Congress really pushing for more money for public health.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 1:00:28-1:00:33
“Public health is getting shortchanged.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 1:00:35-1:00:38
“We need people like the Cassidy's and John Thune to be advocating for more money for public health care at the state levels.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 1:00:38-1:00:50
“I also put the barcodes on pharmaceutical drugs that nobody else [did].”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 1:04:07-1:04:15
“Universal health care is not achievable here in the U.S.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 1:06:43-1:06:49
“The United States government is broken. I mean, we're 30, 36 trillion, soon to be $38 trillion in debt.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 1:07:08-1:07:17