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CNN Novak, Hunt & Shields

Tommy Thompson Discusses Patients' Rights Legislation

Aired August 04, 2001 - 17:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: From Washington: EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS.

Now: Robert Novak and Mark Shields.

MARK SHIELDS, CO-HOST: I'm Mark Shields. Robert Novak and I will question the Bush Cabinet member responsible for health policy.

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: He is Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NOVAK (voice-over): President Bush's health care policy scored a major victory when the president reached agreement on a patients' bill of rights with Republican Congressman Charlie Norwood of Georgia.

REP. CHARLES NORWOOD (R), GEORGIA: I took the best deal I could get to get us there and accomplish the goals that we started at.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: This is a stunning abdication of what we should be fighting to protect for the people that we represent.

NOVAK: Most House Republicans were brought back to the president's standard, and the Bush-backed HMO reform passed by a five- vote margin along party lines. But it faces major trouble in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

This is not the only contentious issue confronting Tommy Thompson. The HHS secretary must deal with Social Security and Medicare reform, prescription drugs, stem-cell research and tobacco.

Secretary Thompson came to Washington this year after 14 years as governor of Wisconsin, where he made a national reputation as an advocate of welfare reform and school choice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOVAK: Governor Thompson, almost everybody that I talk to on the Hill says that the bill that passed the House cannot get through the passage -- that there will have to be changes made in the Senate-House conference, and even the people who voted for it in the House say the same thing. Do you agree that changes have to be made in the bill? TOMMY THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: There are going to be some more changes made. There's no question about that, Bob. But the truth of the matter is is that the president had a stunning victory -- one in which he personally got involved, did the lobbying, made the deal with Charlie Norwood, went up on Capitol Hill, talked to the Republicans, encouraged Democrats to come on board. So I think it was a tremendous victory for the president.

But now the next step, of course, is the United States Senate. But the real question is, if they want a bill -- and I really think...

NOVAK: "They" being who?

THOMPSON: The Democrats. If they want a bill, they're going to have to come towards the Charlie Norwood-Bush compromise because the president will veto anything else. And it doesn't make any sense to get this far along and then have a bill that the president will not sign.

THOMPSON: The people want it. Let's get the president to sign it.

NOVAK: Let me be specific, if I can, Mr. Secretary.

THOMPSON: Sure.

NOVAK: A lot of people, even some Republicans I have talked to, feel that there are too many hoops that you have to go through to get a lawsuit against an HMO under the House-passed bill.

Without going back to where the original House bill was -- the Dingell-Ganske bill -- are you willing to accept a little easier process for getting into court, suing an HMO?

THOMPSON: No. I think that we have compromised and compromised and compromised. The president started out, you know, requiring a bill that was only going to be in the federal courts. Now, we're in the state courts...

NOVAK: So no more compromise.

THOMPSON: I don't see any further compromises. I think that this president has bent over backwards to reach a consensus, and I think he should be complimented on what he's been able to accomplish.

SHIELDS: Governor Thompson, one of the wrinkles that kind of struck me was I read a quote of yours where you said that the president doesn't want to usurp states from supervising, regulating their own health insurance programs. Thirty-two states now have passed a patients' bill of rights that should not be usurped. Yet this bill that's just passed the House -- conservatives talk about states' rights, but when it came right to the crunch, they went with the feds.

THOMPSON: Well, they did go with the feds in many instances, Mark, but the truth of the matter is that this bill is a compromise. And you've been on Capitol Hill longer than a lot of people, and you know that in order to get good legislation passed through both houses through a divided, partisan-controlled Congress, you're going to have to make some concessions. And the president had to make some concessions to get a bill that he could sign into law.

This president wants to sign this bill into law. He signed one into law in Texas. He vetoed the bad bill first, then got a good bill. And he feels the same scenario here in Washington. He wants to sign a good bill, and this is not everything he wanted, but it's one which he can accept.

SHIELDS: Just a point of clarification -- this would be the first one he signed. It became law in Texas without his signature -- the law down there.

SHIELDS: That aside, this week, several networks reported on a House committee report that one third, close to one third, over 5300 of the nursing homes in the United States recorded instances of abuse. Still on your watch, any way to treat the greatest generation?

THOMPSON: No, it is not. It's unacceptable, Mark, and we're going to be doing a lot of investigation, a lot of supervising and a lot of regulating and we're going to come up with an initiative, the president and the department, is going to be announced in September and I think that you're going to be very supportive of it.

And we're looking forward to that. I can't tell you now, but we're working on it and it's really a result of some of the problems that the nursing home industry has. It's some way that they're treating their patients that's got to be changed. We've got to improve that. The reimbursement formulas have got to be changed to allow for good homes to do what is right and be able to bring the recalcitrant homes back into the position of making sure that they protect patients' rights.

NOVAK: Friday's "Wall Street Journal," your health care administrator at the department, Tom Scully, said that the regulation, inspection of nursing homes on a 12 to 15 month, every 12 to 15, month as required by Federal law is quote, "nutty," unquote. Was he misquoted or was he just wrong?

THOMPSON: No, he was not misquoted, and he was not wrong. What Tom Scully was talking about is, let's really inspect the bad homes more often. The good homes that are doing a good job and really providing excellent care, we don't have to keep going back in there year after year, maybe go back in once every two years. But the bad homes, the ones that are really causing the problems, they should be supervised much more frequently.

And that's going to be a part of the new policy. Those homes that have violated the rules and have injured patients or are not taking care of patients, they're the ones that should be supervised much more strenuously, much more regularly than the other homes that are doing a good job. And we can make those determinations and that's where we want to put our resources on, are the bad homes and a lot of the good homes to continue to operate. NOVAK: Mr. Secretary, the president's Social Security commission in its interim report was greeted by Democratic criticism almost across the board.

THOMPSON: Did you expect anything else, Bob?

NOVAK: And one of the things that they did say was that if the system is in bad a shape as you say it is, that you're going to have to have either a tax increase or a diminution of benefits or both. Can you rule out both a tax increase and a reduction in benefits in the near-term, considering that you're running out of money in the Social Security system?

THOMPSON: We can't rule out anything, and I don't think we can rule anything in at this point in time, Bob. What the commission said is that there is a way in which we can solve the problems with Social Security and we can make this a much more viable system, and that we need to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis to fix Social Security for the long haul.

We need to get it back on a financial footing that is going to be very secure for all of our seniors, but also for our children and grandchildren. And we can accomplish that, but it's going to require some compromise and some leadership on both sides. We can demagogue it, make it a political issue and make it the third rail of politics, and never solve it. And that's been the problem in the past.

NOVAK: Speaking of the third rail of politics, Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia, chairman of the House Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, said that the Republicans almost lost that special election in Virginia with Randy Forbes on the Social Security issue. If the Democrats had enough money, he said they would probably have lost it. Governor, you've been elected governor of your state four times -- the only person in the history of Wisconsin to do it. Would you recommend to people running for office, for Congress, for the Republican Party in the year 2002, to lay-off Social Security?

THOMPSON: I'm not going to advise the members of the Congress as to whether or not they should take up Social Security or not. That's going to have to be an initiative put out by the White House, and it's also going to have to be collaboration with the leadership of both houses. I will advise them, don't take it up if it's just going to be the Republicans who want to address the issue.

THOMPSON: But if both political parties want to show their good faith and sit down, roll up their sleeves and want to come up with a real bipartisan bill which will fix Social Security, which the American public really wants, then absolutely.

Everybody can be heroes if in fact they want to take the leadership and do this. But if they want to demagogue it and turn it into a partisan thing, absolutely not. Why should the Republicans do it then?

SHIELDS: Governor Thompson, we're seeing in Washington now sort of the amazing shrieking surplus story, and the reports are circulating just about everywhere we're going to have to dip into the Medicare trust fund to finance the federal government. Doesn't this mean that the prospect that even the possibility of prescription drug coverage under Medicare is unrealistic and maybe even a cruel hoax?

THOMPSON: No, it is not, Mark. And I want to tell you that this is something that the president has asked the department and myself to really take the leadership on and try and develop a Medicare proposal on a bipartisan basis.

And I've been really. I have to tell you, I've been quite optimistic recently talking to Senator Baucus, on the Democrats side, talking to Senator Daschle, talking to Senator Kennedy and other Republicans on the other side, that we have a chance. And I believe the Ways and Means Committee under the leadership of Congressman Thomas and the Commerce Committee under the leadership of Congressman Tauzin, I think we really do have a chance this year to get prescription drugs and also to strengthen Medicare.

And I felt very good about it. I've testified two weeks ago on both Ways and Means Committee and the Commerce Committee, and I was heartened and encouraged by the bipartisan spirit that both sides said, "Let's do it."

I don't think Congress can go home without a prescription drug. I think too many Congressman have campaigned on it and made it a real political issue. I think that it would be very foolish to go home without it.

SHIELDS: OK, we have to take a break, but when we come back, we'll ask the secretary of health and human services if the Bush administration is a little soft on tobacco.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: Mr. Secretary, the resignation of one of your assistant secretaries, Thomas Novotny, was just announced. He has been handling the outreach by the United States on the tobacco problem, and it's been widely reported he feels that your policy under the Bush administration has been too soft. What kind of message does that send to the world, that the United States is backing away from the tobacco question?

THOMPSON: I really think that your facts are a little bit erroneous. I've talked to Tom Novotny on many occasions. He's a good friend. He's a valued member of the administration. And he is retiring not because of the tobacco policy: He's retiring because he's reached retirement age and he wants to slow down. And he's going to retire in February.

The Bush administration is not backing away from tobacco and has increased its budget by 7 percent through the NIH, and we're also under two issues. We may be different a little bit from the Clinton administration. We're different from the Clinton administration.

But the two main items: that is protecting the health not only of Americans, but all of the citizens around the world, and trying to prevent the youth from starting to smoke are the two key issues of the Bush administration and we're going to fight for both of those issues.

NOVAK: Mr. Secretary, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, who is a doctor, but also from a tobacco state, I understand he is introducing a bill to provide for Federal Drug Administration, FDA, regulation of tobacco.

THOMPSON: I think that's good.

NOVAK: You think that's good?

THOMPSON: Absolutely. I've supported it, and I have spoken out on that. And I think that it's about time that FDA gets the opportunity and power to regulate tobacco. And I think it's the right thing, and hopefully they'll pass it.

SHIELDS: OK. Governor Thompson, in Wisconsin you had the reputation of being the architect and engineer of welfare to work and all the rest of it. You said time and again you can't do welfare on the cheap. So how does that translate in the federal? I mean, you went from 12 million to 300 million in day care for children in Wisconsin on your beat, but that is not the Republican message here.

THOMPSON: Well, I think it is the Republican message from the department's point of view. I don't know what the Congress is going to do, but you really can't do welfare reform on the cheap. You've got to provide for day care. You've got to provide for health care. And you've got to provide for transportation and training, if you want to get people off of welfare into the job market, which of course, to me, is the ultimate objective.

And you've also got to realize that once you do that, this is not on the cheap. This is an investment, especially in children and in mothers. And that's what the Bush administration really is all about. We want to make sure that we do the best job when we reauthorize the TANF bill, to make sure that we protect mothers and children and give them the tools necessary so they can get off of welfare, get back in the job market and be able to lead the American life.

SHIELDS: On the subject of women and children, one of the proposals of your department has been to provide prenatal care...

THOMPSON: Yes.

SHIELDS: ... to the unborn child. And...

THOMPSON: And I just expanded that.

SHIELDS: OK and all over the place, critics have said this is a back-door effort to repeal Roe versus Wade.

THOMPSON: Yes. Isn't that something? Can you imagine that? How can you provide for prenatal care and some critics can say that is the way that you're going to overturn Roe v. Wade?

It -- to me, the critics are absolutely off-base. We did this to make sure that children are brought into this world in a healthy way and that we're going to do everything we possibly can. That has been my motto and we're going to continue to do that. And you know something? Even the critics now come around a little bit, Mark, and said you know what, it's probably the right thing.

NOVAK: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to give you a complicated question, asking for a quick answer. But Pope John Paul II with the president seated next to him came out on the basis of scripture against embryonic stem cell research. Isn't that case closed for you, a Roman Catholic? How can you talk about compromising on this issue when the holy father says it's cut-and-dried?

THOMPSON: Well, Bob, the truth of the matter is, is that this is an issue that is very contentious. It's very complicated. And there are so many things that are going into it. My job is to advise the president on the science and also advise the president on what the research might be able to accomplish...

NOVAK: I'm not saying what your position is.

THOMPSON: I don't think it's my position. I think everybody knows pretty much what my position is, but it's not -- that is not the case. The case is what is the president's position, and the president is spending a lot of time. He's listening to experts on both sides of the aisle, and he's going to make a very conscientious, and a very, a very constructive decision sometime in the near future.

SHIELDS: OK. We have to take one more break, and when we come back, we'll have "The Big Question" for Governor Tommy Thompson.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHIELDS: "The Big Question" for Governor Tommy Thompson: As governor of Wisconsin, there was nobody who was happier in his job. Fourteen years, you get re-elected. You're up to 75 percent approval. You don't seem as happy as secretary of HHS.

THOMPSON: Well, I don't think I am as happy. And I don't know, ask me a question, I'll be very candid. You know, I loved being governor, and being secretary is an awesome responsibility. It's a humbling job, and I enjoy it. But I can't tell you I'm as happy as being governor as I am as secretary, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the opportunity to serve.

NOVAK: And you're not leaving soon?

THOMPSON: I'm not leaving soon, no.

NOVAK: Governor, your department has over 60,000 employees.

THOMPSON: Sixty-three thousand, I've counted them all.

NOVAK: Sixty-three thousand. People out in the heartland of Wisconsin, Republicans wonder, do you need that many bureaucrats?

THOMPSON: We are -- we're looking at ways to streamline it, and we're doing it. I'm doing something different that no other secretary has ever done. I'm moving my office out of Washington one week out of each month to go out and operate a division. I'm learning the programs. I'm finding out what's working.

We also found out when I was going through the budget, we've got lots of things that we can change. I have 40 personnel offices. Now, you tell me why I need 40 personnel offices. I don't. So we'll be able to...

NOVAK: Next time we see you, you'll have that trimmed down. Thank you very much, Secretary Thompson.

Mark Shields and I will be back with a comment after these messages.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: I'm Robert Novak.

SHIELDS: I'm Mark Shields.

NOVAK: Coming up in one-half hour on "RELIABLE SOURCES": Are the media short-changing coverage of President Bush in favor of Bill Clinton? Plus, a conversation with "The Wall Street Journal"'s new editorial page editor, Paul Gigot.

And at 7:00 p.m. on "CAPITAL GANG": What's ahead for the patients' bill of rights? Is the Bush agenda back on track? And an inside look at Colin Powell's trip to Asia.

SHIELDS: That's all. Thanks for watching.

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