The number of employees dealing with elder care / work challenges grows daily with the aging of America's population. Yet, the major Presidential candidates utter nary a word about this simmering crisis in family care and family finances.

An article in the New York Times, "Elder Care Costs Deplete Savings of a Generation" (December 30, 2006), written by Jane Gross, paints a vivid picture of the financial impact that caregiving can have on an employee's personal financial situation:

"To care for her ailing 97-year-old father over the past three years, Elizabeth Rodriguez, a vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, has borrowed against her 401(k) retirement plan, sold her house on Staten Island and depleted nearly 20 years of savings.

"The money has gone to lawyers' fees ($50,000) to win a contested guardianship. It has gone for home- care equipment like the mattress for his hospital bed (about $3,000 in all) and for a food service to deliver meals ($400 a month).

"It has gone for a two-bedroom rental apartment big enough for herself, her dad and a home aide ($1,600 a month more than a one-bedroom apartment in the same building), and for a wheelchair- accessible van to get him to doctors' appointments ($330 a trip).

"Asked to tally the costs, Ms. Rodriguez, 58, said she had no idea how much she was spending. "A shower chair, body cream with no alcohol, new shoes," she said. "You don't stop and calculate. You just buy what you have to buy."

"Ms. Rodriguez is among the legion of adult children - more than 15 million, according to various calculations - who take care of their aging parents, a responsibility that often includes paying for all or part of their housing, medical supplies and incidental expenses. Many costs are out of pocket and largely unnoticed: clothing, home repair, a cellular telephone."

And a 2006 AARP study (The Costs of Long-Term Care: Public Perceptions Versus Reality in 2006, Linda L. Barrett, Ph.D.) of persons 45 years of age or older found a shocking level of ignorance about the cost of long term care and the payment sources available to cover it. Some key findings:

• Most (59%) think Medicare will pay for extended nursing home stay, but it doesn't. Fifty-two percent incorrectly believe Medicare covers assisted living costs. Another 18% "don't know." Even people who have personal experience with long-term care do not appear to understand Medicare's limitations.
• In California, 40% incorrectly believe Medi-Cal will defray assisted living costs.
• Only 1 in 10 Florida residents can estimate the cost of a visit by a home aide within ± of the average.
• Nearly half of Ohio respondents (45%) incorrectly believe Medigap/Medicare Supplemental Insurance covers assisted living costs.
• More than half of Pennsylvanians (54%) estimated too low when asked about the cost of a nursing home stay.
• About half of South Carolina respondents (48%) incorrectly believe Medicare will pay for assisted living residence care.

During this election year, the silence on this issue is deafening. Could it be that the candidates are counting on baby boomers' continued ignorance about and denial of long term care financing?

Whoever next occupies the oval office will face quite an outcry if and when those baby boomers and their employers wake up to the impact that the cost of long term care will have on family finances in millions of American households and workplaces in the years to come.