Klobuchar unveils plan to help Alzheimer’s patients, caregivers

Presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on Friday unveiled a plan to help people with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers. 

The plan would provide new funding for research into the disease and aims to find a cure and treatment by 2025, according to The Associated Press. It would also create a refundable tax credit to help with long-term care costs.

{mosads}Klobuchar’s plan aims to put between $100 billion and $150 billion to the credit, which would come from removing tax exemptions for certain capital gains. 

The proposal would also strengthen retirement funds and Social Security benefits, in addition to investing in long-term treatments — plans for which Klobuchar had previously expressed support.

The Democratic presidential hopeful said in an interview with CBS News that much of her plan is investing and reaching those goals by 2025. But she said her plan also has caregivers in mind.

“They may be a husband or a wife, or they may be a daughter or son but they’re heroes and they are the ones that are there every single day,” she said.

She added to CBS that the plan is about seniors and “keeping Medicare and Social Security strong and also being able to push on the drug companies.”

Klobuchar is among more than two dozen people running for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination. 

She has struggled to gain traction in the polls since announcing her bid. The RealClearPolitics average of polls currently has the Minnesota senator in 11th place among Democratic hopefuls, with 1.2 percent of the vote.  

Updated 10:15 a.m.