WASHINGTON – At 69 and responsible for caring for her quadriplegic husband, Evie Rosen-Budd watches her health and tries to exercise regularly.

“If I got sick, it would be a really major issue,” the Edwards, Colo., woman said in a telephone interview from her home.

She’s not alone. A Senate hearing Wednesday found that thousands of women who, because they are living longer, are thrust into similar roles with little preparation and few resources.

“America lacks an effective system to address care giving,” Laurie Young, executive director of the Older Women’s League, told senators. “As a result, caregivers, the majority of whom are women, are often pushed beyond their means and suffer long-term consequences as they struggle to meet the needs of those who depend on them.”

Congress must act soon to head off a “national care-giving crisis,” Young said.

The advocates found a friendly audience in the Senate.

Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana said the testimony “illustrates that our public policies do far too little to address the concerns of women as they age.”

“We must take a harder look at developing legislative initiatives, like a cohesive long-term care system, that recognize the role of care-givers,” said Breaux, the Democratic chairman of the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who sits on the panel, said, “The simple fact that women can expect to live as many as seven years longer than their male counterparts puts them at far greater risk of needing long-term care. Moreover, not only are women far more likely to need long-term care, but they are also the ones who most often shoulder the burden of providing long-term care to their loved ones.”

Advocates say the problem will only worsen as baby boomers enter their senior years.

According to a report by the government’s Administration on Aging, the number of Americans aged 65 and older is expected to increase from 33.5 million in 1995 to 39.4 million in 2010, a jump of 17 percent.

By 2030, that population is expected to grow a whopping 75 percent to more than 69 million.

Women comprise much of that population. The government estimates that by the year 2050, women will make up 61 percent of the 85 and older population.

Many of them will spend some part of their lives caring for sick spouses or other relatives, experts say.

But at some point, those women will be on their own, often while poor.

Nine out of 10 married women will be widowed, according to the Alliance for Aging Research. And almost three-fourths of the 4 million elderly poor in the United States are women, the alliance said.

“In a recent poll of baby boomers,” Collins said, “only 27 percent of women surveyed had more than $100,000 in their retirement plans; 33 percent of the women surveyed reported having less than $25,000, an amount that would not even be sufficient to cover one year of nursing home costs.”

Dan Perry, the alliance’s executive director, describes these women as a new generation.

“It’s a caregiver woman in her 70s who has a husband that may be in his 80s. That same woman may have her own mother still alive or maybe an aunt in her 90s,” Perry said.

“If that 74-year-old woman falls and fractures a hip or has some other catastrophe that lands her in a nursing home, you’ve got the collapse of generations,” Perry said. “Her husband won’t be able to fend for himself. That aunt now has no one to take care of her.”

“We ought to be thinking more of how we can focus care for that generation,” Perry said.

Rosen-Budd stays home to care for her 79-year-old husband, Bill Budd, getting by financially on his pension and Social Security. Medicare does not cover long-term care, and Rosen-Budd’s family doesn’t qualify for Medicaid’s services for the poor. A specially equipped van the couple had to buy cost $14,000, which had to be paid out-of-pocket. A frame to help Budd exercise was $1,700.

Rosen-Budd can’t imagine what would happen if she became ill. “I would have to be taken care of, and he would have to go somewhere else. We would double expenses,” she said.

Collins and other lawmakers are considering options to help caregivers, including doubling allocations for the National Family Caregiver Support Program. Many senators, including Collins, also are backing a proposal that would give a tax credit for long-term care expenses up to $3,000.

Rosen-Budd wants lawmakers to act soon. “We’re not poor enough to get subsidies, and we’re not rich enough to pay for full-time help. It’s a huge strain.”

Oliver H. Read of the Boston University Washington News Service contributed to this report.