Health Care Candidate Forum Wednesday Night at Pleasant View Estates

Pleasant View Estates in Faribault is hosting a candidate forum on health care Wednesday night. The free event begins at 6:30PM and refreshments will be served.

People are being asked to park in the upper parking lot of Pleasant View and there will be people in the lot to direct you where to go.

State Legislature candidates Brian Daniels and Patti Fritz and state Senate candidates Vicki Jensen and John Jasinski will be in attendance.

The candidate forum is being sponsored by Care Providers of Minnesota and a representative of the organization will be the moderator for the night. Long-term health care will be the focus of the questions of the candidates and there will be a brief period for questions from the audience.

There is a crisis in long-term care just around the corner with the baby boomer generation reaching those senior years.

About 60,000 people will turn 65 every year in Minnesota until the year 2030. About seven in 10 Americans who reach age 65 in the next five years can expect to need some level of long-term care services. Yet, according to Care Providers, most of the individuals will have no plan for covering the expenses.

You are also invited to a Meet The Candidates event this Thursday at F-Town Brewery in Faribault. Faribault City Council candidates Royal Ross and Tom Spooner will be there from 5-7PM.

No food or beverages will be provided at the event.

The candidates will be back at F-Town on Thursday, October 27.

Tuesday was voter registration day in Minnesota. Secretary of State Steve Simon says there are more than 3.1 million registered voters in the state.

Simon notes within the past week, nearly 47,000 Minnesotans registered to vote online and the first day of eligibility for absentee voting last Friday, a record 27,000 people registered.

I checked with the Rice County Auditor/Treasurer office and, as of Tuesday morning, just under 1,000 people had voted absentee.

County Auditor/Treasurer Fran Windschitl is the county's chief election official and enjoys working with numbers. He told me Tuesday that during the last presidential election in 2012, 2,774 absentee ballots were filled out in Rice County.

Windschitl believes a record number of people will vote absentee now that you don't have to have an excuse for not being in your precinct to vote.