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Tommy Thompson: “Universal health care is not achievable here in the U.S.”

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

Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson

Published July 30, 2025 | Video Starts at 1:06:43

Medicare, all of this stuff was in the over, but it was. It was the need … Universal health care is not achievable here in the U.S. … broke, so there's not. There's not the emphasis on it anymore. Hardly. It's not even hardly discussed in presidential politics anymore. It's mentioned, but it's not a driving thing. (1:06:43–1:06:49)

CLAIM

Asserts that universal health care is not achievable in the U.S.

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
“Medicare's got problems, Medicaid's got problems, and we have to fix it.”
Ep26 - HHS Then & Now with Tommy Thompson | Uploaded July 30, 2025 | 11:09-11:14
“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
“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