Senator Debbie Stabenow and Alzheimers
Stabenow’s HOPE for Alzheimers act seeks to help the diagnosed.
Join WDET host Stephen Henderson and Michigan’s Senior Senator Debbie Stabenow for a conversation about the HOPE act. This bipartisan bill seeks to give aid to the 185,000 Alzheimer’s patients in the State by providing them and their families with the information and support to help handle the disease.
Stabenow explains this is a disease that affects the entire community and there is still a stigma on mental disease. She hopes that The HOPE act will help doctors and families craft early diagnoses and care plans that not only raise awareness of the disease and how it can be dealt with but also help craft health care measures that are more effective. She relates that although there are Doctors who see no hope in giving the diagnoses there are still ways to help patients and this bill pushes Doctors to be more proactive on the front-end and work along with new research and developments.
Stephen and Stabenow also discuss the senate letter to Iran and changes to the senate over time. She discusses how the international community is different from the closed community of legislation and how negotiation tactics and the senators view of their own role has changed since she has been in office. She feels that leaders now sometimes “do whatever is politically helpful at the moment and we see people changing from one side of an issue to the other,” but the constituency expects them to adhere to specific values. The multitude of views present also makes it hard for legislators and leaders because of what she calls a “new extremism” that has polarized how people have view their own opinions dramatically.
They also discuss her trip to Cuba and how opening the borders would not only help trade in the state, but give Cubans a closer link to daily resources and necessities. Stabenow sees it as a real economic opportunity for the state as well as a way to create opportunities for freedom in the Cuban community.
