As the founder and CEO of CareLinx, an online caregiving platform, I'm going to steer clear of presidential politics and avoid giving even the appearance of a candidate endorsement. Healthcare is a political hot button that deeply divides the major political parties, as this video of a Congressional hearing makes abundantly clear.
What I find puzzling, however, is that family caregiving hasn't become a compelling issue in the Presidential campaign. According to the AARP Public Policy Institute, 42 percent of U.S. workers have provided care for an aging relative or friend in the past five years. Nearly half of the U.S. workforce expects to be providing eldercare in the coming five years. In addition to lost wages because of time off work, the lower earnings are further compounded by the significant costs associated with family caregiving.
As best I can tell, only Hillary Clinton has advanced a proposal to deal with the crushing financial burden that caregiving has on families. Clinton's proposal has received scant media attention, which perhaps explains why none of the other presidential candidates have felt compelled to weigh in on the issue.
But this weekend I came across an insightful blog post on caregiving and the presidential campaign. The post's author is veteran journalist Richard Eisenberg, the money and work editor for Next Avenue, an impressive website catering to people 50 and over. Eisenberg's post outlines Clinton's proposal and gives some valuable insights as well.
Eisenberg's blog post is impressively comprehensive, so rather than seek to distill it I'm just going to recommend it as a must read on caregiving as a national issue. It can be found here.
Kudos to Next Avenue and Eisenberg for being among the few to identify and cover the issue of caregiving and its growing impact on aging baby boomers.