Liberal blogs have been running with the story that former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, the former governor of Wisconsin and a likely Republican candidate in its Paul Ryan-less Senate race, made statements in support of what ultimately became Obamacare.
Here’s a joint statement with former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt praising the Senate health care bill in November 2009. Here’s a New York Times blog post on a statement he and Gephardt released on the bill voted out of the Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee (the NYT said the statement was distributed by the White House). And here is an official White House blog post showing him at a June 2010 event with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on “turning the Affordable Care Act into a reality.”
It’s worth noting that the statements jump from a period of time when moderate Republicans were still at least nominally involved in the health care negotiations until after it had already passed. But it looks like Medicare Part D might not be Thompson’s biggest problem.
