Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at an AARP forum in Iowa. | Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo 2020 elections Biden chokes up during Iowa forum

DES MOINES – Joe Biden grew emotional, choking on his words and tearing up during a forum here Monday as he described the value of personal care givers, relating the discussion to the tragedies in his own life.

“They should be rewarded, compensated for what they do. They're desperately needed, particularly in poor and rural areas,” Biden said at a AARP presidential candidate forum here, saying that “paid care givers are not paid very much at all.”


“It's a tough, tough line of work. By the way, we've all been there probably. If you need help, I promise you, there is nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, more important to you than that person who’s there, helping with the bedpan,” he said, beginning to tear up and pausing. “When they get really scared, you know. Hold their hand, you know?”

The moderator paused for a moment, saying she wanted to make sure it was OK to move on to the next question. “No, no, I apologize,” Biden said and shifted back into answering questions.

During the forum, Biden repeatedly related the health care conversation to his personal life, bringing up the deaths of his wife and daughter, who died in a 1972 car crash, and the death of his son Beau in 2015. The former vice president also brought up both of his parents, who spent time under hospice care in his home.

“Drug companies make a lot of money. And I’m not against anyone making a lot of money. I’m against anybody making a lot of money off of my two [children] and my wife who died,” Biden said earlier in the conversation.

The exchange came on the same day that Biden rolled out his health care plan, which includes adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act. Biden leaned hard into his opponents’ embrace of Medicare for All, saying that it would mean unraveling Obamacare and extolled the benefits of his plan.

"If you like your health care plan, your employer-based plan, you can keep it,” Biden said. “If, in fact, you have private insurance, you can keep it."

That comment was reminiscent of a promise that haunted former President Barack Obama after he declared that under the Affordable Care Act, patients would be able to keep their doctors if they so choose.

The forum was Biden’s first event in a three-day swing through Iowa, which ends on Wednesday with a visit to Council Bluffs.

