While sipping my coffee Sunday morning I happened across one of the doyens of NY Times political opinion, Thomas Friedman, turning his attention to the coming crisis in elder care . It is thrilling to see such attention lavished on an issue near to our hearts, but also fascinating to momentarily see our field through someone else's eyes. So how do our nation's pundits and policymakers perceive the challenges of long term care? Mr. Friedman provocatively frames his discussion as a question of national priorities: caring for our own elders versus maintaining our military presence around the world. He argues that several "trend lines" including the aging population, rise in prevalence of dementia, and reduced savings of retiring seniors will soon combine to present the US with a stark choice: "between nursing homes in America and nursery schools in Afghanistan". The article is a sobering, realistic call for attention to a topic largely left out of the hea