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July 27, 2016 at 09:00 AM
A few months ago, Brenda Bouchard posted a beautiful collection of YouTube videos.
The New Hampshire resident put the presidential primary campaign season in a whole new, softer light by asking the candidates what they thought about Alzheimer’s disease and long-term care.
Former Republican presidential candidate and current U.S. senator from Texas Ted Cruz, for example, has a reputation for being a tough man, but he gave a detailed, emotional, personal explanation of why he cares about Alzheimer’s disease.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had a multipart plan. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump talked about the sadness of seeing friends suffering from Alzheimer’s and the need for funding for research.
Related: An LTC planner’s guide to the presidential candidates
Now, Clinton’s pick of Virgina Sen. Tim Kaine to be her running mate and Trump’s pick of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to be his vice president has created a great opportunity for the country to organize a special new kind of debate: A debate showing what the vice presidential candidates think about long-term care issues.
Kaine was the lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 through 2006 and the governor of that state from 2006 through 2010. He’s been representing Virginia in the U.S. Senate since 2013, and he’s a member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
Pence served in the U.S. House from 2001 through 2013, and he’s been Indiana’s governor since 2013.
Pence was a strong advocate for his state’s Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership program — a program that encourages people to buy private long-term care coverage by easing Medicaid nursing home benefits eligibility rules for Partnership coverage users who run out of private long-term care insurance benefits. A letter he sent on behalf of the program in 2013 was enthusiastic enough that a state resident dubbed Pence “Insurance Salesman Pence.”
While Pence was in the House, he cosponsored several bills that could have promoted use of health savings accounts or similar accounts to pay for LTCI premiums and long-term care services.
Kaine said during a speech at a Medicaid meeting in 2006 that he thought private long-term care insurance was still in its infancy; that Medicaid was “practically the sole payer of long-term care”; and that states had to focus on reducing the need for long-term care, by using wellness and chronic condition management programs to improve population health.
But Virginia set up its Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership program while Kaine was governor, and, in 2007, he encouraged use of the program with an “Own Your Future” campaign.
The press release included a statement from Kaine in which he said that, “Most of us have strong opinions about what we want for ourselves as we age, but many of us have not taken the steps to address these needs.”
“Planning for your future allows you to make these important life decisions yourself, instead of leaving them to others or waiting for a crisis that could limit your options,” Kaine said in the release.
