House of Delegates candidates Lily Franklin and Chris Obenshain both called for tax credits for caregivers at a forum hosted by AARP in Blacksburg on Wednesday night.
Speaking to a room of about 60 people, mostly older adults, Franklin and Obenshain talked about their own experience caring for older family members.
“As a member of Generation X, I’ve witnessed firsthand how our generation has been squeezed between providing for our children, on one hand, and providing for our parents and loved ones on the other hand,” said Obenshain, the Republican incumbent in House District 41, which covers parts of Montgomery and Roanoke counties.
“I was in charge of a lot of the caregiving needs with my grandmother,” said Franklin, the Democratic nominee. “And it got to a place that we were making sure that she had, if she fell, that we had little pumps to make sure we could get her up off the ground.”
AARP Virginia hosted the candidate forum Wednesday night at the Blacksburg Community Center. Robert Denton Jr., a retired Virginia Tech professor who specialized in political campaign rhetoric and a political analyst for WBDJ-TV, moderated the event.
During the forum, Denton asked each candidate a preselected set of questions submitted by AARP members while the other candidate waited outside the room. An AARP spokeswoman said they structured the forum that way “to keep the event orderly and civil and prevent partisanship or personal attacks on the candidates.”
This election is the second time Franklin and Obenshain have faced off. In 2023, Obenshain won by just 183 votes and now seeks a second term.
What they agreed on
Tax credit for caregivers
Franklin and Obenshain both said they would support providing tax deductions for expenses family members incur while caring for an older adult.
“The fact that they’re not doing it for the money doesn’t take away the financial burden that a lot of folks feel,” Obenshain said.
Franklin said in addition to a tax credit, the state should allocate more money in community programs, such as food assistance and in-home care, “so that all of the pressure of caregiving isn’t just on the family.”
Medicaid benefits
Both candidates also said they would make sure that Medicaid benefits would not decrease for people who need it as a result of recent federal cuts.
Franklin said she would want to dip into Virginia’s state’s multibillion-dollar “rainy day fund” in the short term to cover Medicaid funding the state would have received from the federal government.
Obenshain said that Medicaid is “not going anywhere,” and that “Virginia will continue to meet its obligations,” but did not specify how he would make up the gap.
Community connection
Answering a question about which news sources they trust in an age of misinformation, both candidates said it’s important that people spend less time on social media and more time talking to people in their community to understand the issues.
“We get so closed off on our social media apps that we’re not communicating with each other,” Franklin said.
“We are getting siloed in our own little bubble, especially online,” Obenshain said. “Social media companies, their purpose is not to provide truthful information. Their purpose is to get you to use their product.”
Where they disagreed
Prescription costs
To relieve residents of high prescription costs, both Franklin and Obenshain pointed to a bill that Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed earlier this year that would have created a new governing board to regulate drug prices, but for different reasons.
Obenshain said more bureaucracy would only reduce the availability of prescription drugs and the bill missed the root cause of high prices. Franklin said the board could have instituted price caps on essential medicines if the bill had passed.
Improving nursing homes
When asked how they would improve the quality of care in nursing homes, Franklin said the legislature needs to provide funding so that nursing homes are able to meet the standards without raising prices for older adults.
“We can’t just pass these mandates and not help provide funding for these centers,” Franklin said.
Obenshain said that spending taxpayer dollars on nursing homes with poor care ratings is “wrong.” He suggested focusing on more workforce training programs for nurses to go into long-term care facilities.
Online scams
Obenshain said as a prosecutor, he would focus on making sure Virginia laws and criminal penalties keep up with emerging technologies that make scams harder to detect.
Franklin said she would focus on community outreach once the state becomes aware of a new scam and make sure consumer protection is a priority for the state attorney general’s office.
Early voting began Sept. 19 and goes through Nov. 1. For more information about the candidates’ views on economic growth, education, energy, taxes and more, see the Montgomery County and Roanoke County pages on our Voter Guide.
