Charleston, S.C., April 23, 2007—Health care can be central to both the domestic and foreign policies of the United States, said Tommy Thompson, former governor of Wisconsin and U.S. cabinet secretary, in an address to a meeting sponsored by the American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS).

Thompson, who has formally announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president, was the keynote speaker at the AAIS Main Event, the association’s annual executive conference.

In his remarks, Thompson noted that the U.S. currently spends nearly 16% of its gross domestic product on health care, a figure that leads the world and is twice the percentage spent by Japan, the second leading nation in health care spending.

Yet, he added, if someone were designing a national system for heath care, “Nobody in this room would set up a health care system like we have today.”

Thompson told the audience he is seeking to make health care a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign, and laid out four health care principles he would pursue if he becomes president:

• To devote a greater share of money and resources, both public and private, to wellness;

• To promote better management of diseases when people become ill;

• To increase the number of people with health insurance coverage; and

• To promote more and better use of information technology in medicine.

If health care reform is not forthcoming, Thompson said, “the healthcare system we have today has got until 2013 before it is going to collapse.” That is when the Medicare system is project to go into deficit.

Thompson said health care can also be an important foreign policy tool of the U.S.

Citing experiences in Afghanistan and Indonesia where U.S. aid to distressed populations helped turn around negative attitudes toward the U.S., Thompson called on the U.S. to implement “medical diplomacy,” a program of sending young doctors around the world on hospital ships to help care for sick people.

Thompson departed from his discussion of health care to lay out his program for managing the conflict in Iraq, which consists of three basic elements:

• He would ask the elected government of Iraq to vote on whether it wanted American troops to remain in the country. If such a vote were “yes,” Thompson reasoned that American military operations in Iraq would be recognized as legitimate. If the vote were “no,” Thompson said, “then we should get out.”

• Each of Iraq’s 18 territories would be encouraged to elect provincial legislatures which would, presumably, be dominated by the principal ethnic and sectarian groups in each province (Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds). Those elections, said Thompson, could help “get rid of the internecine civil war.”

• Iraqi oil revenue would be divided roughly into thirds, one third going to the federal government, one third to the provincial governments, and one third to individual households. By giving households a direct share of oil revenues, Thompson said, the Iraqi people would have capital for business formation and investment, and a stake in preserving the nation’s oil commerce.