Small Cap Pulse Speaks to Tommy Thompson about Medicare, Healthcare and SpectraScience
Aug 07, 2008
Author: Administrator
Governor Tommy Thompson Discusses Medicare, Presidential Candidates and SpectraScience with Small Cap Pulse
August 5, 2008
We had an opportunity to discuss healthcare issues this past week with Governor Tommy Thompson, as well as his insights into the problems facing Medicare, how the current presidential candidates are approaching it, and his praise for a San Diego-based cancer screening company named SpectraScience (OTCBB:SCIE) where he has taken a board seat.
SCP: Good Morning Governor Thompson, how are you?
TT: Doing well.
SCP: This is Todd Pitcher with the Small Cap Pulse.
TT: Todd, how are you?
SCP: Fantastic. Well I just wanted to thank you this morning for joining us to discuss your views on the current healthcare environment.
TT: Well I would be more than happy to give my views on it. It is a mess.
SCP: You’ve had a busy public career. You’ve headed up the Health & Human Services Department in the Bush administration; you’ve been a four-term governor of Wisconsin and this last year you ran for the Republican presidential nomination. And now you are just as busy in the private sector. You are senior advisor to the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a partner at Akin & Gump and a President of Logistics Health Incorporated.
This morning we look forward to your insight with respect to issues on healthcare in the current economy, Medicare as well as updates on your service in the private sector.
TT: Fine.
SCP: If I can ask you to talk for a minute to about your current focus in the healthcare services environment. In the midst of the current challenging economy, where do you think the country’s core priorities should be?
TT: Right now we are in a crisis in healthcare Todd. And the sooner that we address it the better off we will be, because everything that is delayed is exacerbating the situation. We are spending way too much money, $2.4 trillion, 16% of the Gross National Product, and that is going to be going to 22% over the next 5-6 years unless we make some dramatic changes. Medicare starts going broke in the year 2012, and will be completely bankrupt by the time 2018 rolls around.
And that, unless it is fixed will have a cascading impact on healthcare to the extent that it can absolutely collapse it. And then on top of that you have 47 million individuals without insurance that don’t have the ability to have an opportunity to see a doctor at the right time, and at the right places.
And then you have got 25 million individuals who are underinsured, meaning that they don’t have it. So the healthcare system in the United States at the current time is almost schizophrenic, and it needs a lot of bed rest, but more importantly, it needs a transfusion and a complete transformation.
SCP: That is pretty daunting and against that backdrop what do we do to begin to address and fix that issue, and are either of the presidential candidates, in your opinion, moving in the right direction?
TT: I do not believe that they are moving in the right direction. They are making a lot of discussion and that is good because the more we talk about it the better chance we have of fixing it.
I think Senator Obama is depending too much on the government to fix it completely. And therefore, I don’t think that is going to be a successful plan – more of a government controlled system.
And the Republican side is way too much based on the free enterprise system.
So I categorize the Democrat plan as “healthcare heavy” and the Republican plan as “healthcare light.” And what we have to do is move more to the middle. There has to be more government involvement but at the same time there has to be more choice. The consumers have to have more choices.
And so, saying all that, I am glad they are talking about it. I am very excited about the possibilities and as I have indicated to a lot of people in my speeches that I believe that 2009 is going to be the best year that we have ever had to see a complete transformation of healthcare.
I believe that 2009 is going to be the best year we have ever had to see a complete transformation of healthcare. The most important thing is that it is going to be taken up, which is very important.
The next thing is we have to make sure we do not overcompensate to a government controlled system and one that doesn’t absolutely fix it on the other side. So we have got a lot of problems and we need to work very diligently in order to fix it, but I am very excited about that possibility.
SCP: Expanding on that a bit, it goes to your point that you have got “healthcare light” and “healthcare heavy” and at times it seems at times it has been a partisan debate. Why has something so core to our nation’s interest historically been treated in such a partisan manner? There just seem to be some bedrock issues that are so critical that to go about it in a partisan manner is just folly.
TT: It really is. When you take a look at the fact that 16% of our Gross National Product is spent on healthcare, we had better get it right or it could have the opportunity and the possibility and the probability of bankrupting America.
So our political parties have been fighting now for too long on healthcare. Instead of coming to a common ground, they are standing on ideology to the extent that it is not working and we are going to be standing with stalemate next year that is not going to work.
I am much more optimistic however, because I believe that next year is going to be the best year for really fixing and transforming healthcare.
And I am excited about that and I am going to everything that I possibly can to play a positive role of mediating and cajoling and hopefully encouraging the Congress to take up a transformational piece. Fix Medicare by allowing Medicare to be decided by a base closing commission. A commission set up with an equal number of Republicans and Democrats so that they cannot be partisan. It has got to be an equal number of each.
And they are going to have to come up with a tough decision and there are going to be many. There are many that are going to be complex and controversial. The only way to fix it is to have the Congress then have the opportunity to either vote it up or down. That is the way I would fix Medicare.
The next thing that you have to do is that with 75% to 80% of the cost of healthcare going into chronic illnesses you have to put tremendous emphasis on wellness and prevention and disease management. That is the next step.
The third step is that we have got to starting using information technology much more and have it much more ubiquitous with the electronic medical record, e-prescribing and so on which would reduce the deaths and the mistakes and would allow us to get into a system that is much more transparent and much more towards improving the quality.
And finally we have got to fix the uninsured problem by making sure that insurance as well as healthcare is affordable and accessible to all America. And it doesn’t have to be a one-party pair, it doesn’t have to be a government controlled system.
It actually can be based on free-enterprise principles which would work better and allow the consumer to have more choice in selecting his or her healthcare.
SCP: I think the prescription sounds pretty fundamentally common sensical, the question is whether we can get the right people in the room at the same time to address this in an efficient manner.
TT: That’s right, it is common sense. It is common sense to the extent that if people would follow my recipe which I am sure they won’t completely, but it is not ‘heavy lifting.’ It really makes good economic and common sense to fix it and do it right.
And then you go into some great companies out there that are developing some wonderful new medicines to cure our maladies.
You have got some companies that are starting up new devices for detection that are just absolutely “Star Wars” kind of things that will be able to detect illnesses sooner. And we all know that if you detect an illness especially in cancer you are going to have a very good survival rate but even more importantly a cure rate. I am excited about these possibilities.
SCP: That is a great segue into what I wanted to ask you about next. I was going to mention that speaking of problems that don’t cater to one party of another you have got cancer which continues to take a toll on everyone. I know that you serve as a director to a San Diego based cancer screening company named SpectraScience (OTCBB:SCIE) and I was hoping you could talk for minute about your role on the board there and what compelled you to join its team.
TT: You have got to realize that I have been a fighter in this war against cancer for a long time. My mother died from cancer, my mother-in-law died from cancer my brother died from cancer. My wife had breast cancer and my youngest daughter had breast cancer.
So cancer has been a constant enemy of the Thompson household and will do anything I possibly can, so I have been looking around at some really great innovative companies that show tremendous opportunity to do what is necessary to really find the kind of cures that I am hoping to find.
And SpectraScience fits that category right dead center. SpectraScience has got a tremendous opportunity to be one of the best diagnostic companies in the world. It comes up with five different technological advancements that are really some of the best in the world - if not the best. And that is why I am so happy to be part of the growth of that company. I think that company has an extremely bright future and anybody that has been afflicted with cancer will recognize that technology detection is the first step to curing this insidious disease.
And that is why I am so excited about being with SpectraScience. I believe that are going to play such a valuable role in really the fundamental way to really solve this problem and be able to save the lives of many people - as well as the suffering. The pain and suffering that go with cancer is just tremendous and if you can detect it early – and that is what SpectraScience has.
They have new technology for so many different cancers, esophageal, lung cancer and colon cancer and those are just three of the major cancers for which detection is so important. SpectraScience fits that space front and center. “Bulls-eye”, I call it, and that’s what SpectraScience is, it zeros in and gets the bulls-eye where the cancer is where the lesions are and is able to give the doctor, really the kind of expertise they need to cure these cancers.
All I can say is that I am delighted to be with them, I am excited about the possibilities and the future and I am really confident that it is going to be a fantastic growth company that is going to continue to improve with new technologies for the foreseeable future.
SCP: Well that sounds very promising. And I know you have a busy schedule today, and I want to thank you again for your time with us to discuss all of these various issues – both on a broad scale like the issues with Medicare as well as what you are doing on a personal basis to address issues like cancer.
TT: I really appreciate being interviewed by you. I really feel strong about SpectraScience.
SCP: Well I appreciate it, and I appreciate your service to the country and its healthcare system and wish you the best of luck in your continued leadership to make it a better one.
Notes – For more information about SpectraScience, please visit www.spectrascience.com.
This interview was conducted by Todd Pitcher, who is affiliated with Hayden Communications, Inc., a corporate communications firm working with SpectraScience.
