What if men bore six times the economic cost of Alzheimer’s in the U.S? What if it was mostly men who devoted a total of $17.9 billion of unpaid care to a loved one with the disease last year? What if it was mostly men—many of them in the prime of their careers and raising kids to boot—who were forced to take time off from work, take a less demanding part-time job, or quit altogether to provide this care? What if it was mostly men who saw their own emotional and physical health suffer for it—to the tune of $9.7 billion in increased health-care costs themselves?

How much more quickly would public pressure build for reforms to lighten the load? For innovative new models to provide coordinated, long-term care for Alzheimer’s patients under Medicare and Medicaid; for an expanded workforce of well-compensated and well-trained professional caregivers; for access to affordable and not soul-crushing assisted living facilities and nursing homes for all; for a federal paid family and medical leave law for those who want to take care of their loved ones themselves but can’t afford to sacrifice their incomes to do so.

How long would it take, in other words, for this care to be transformed from a private burden to a public one? How long before more and more of the estimated economic value of this unpaid labor—$217 billion annually—was shifted onto insurance companies and government entitlement programs and employers?

If it were—if the market lost this subsidy—the annual economic cost of Alzheimer’s would nearly double. How seriously would we take it then?