The Extraordinary Cost of Alzeimer's

Floor Speech

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I want today to talk about an illness that affects every American family. It is an illness that is devastating. It is Alzheimer's and related dementia. It is the most expensive illness in America today, and it will become even more expensive in the future.

Today, $1 out of $5 spent by Medicare is spent treating Alzheimer's, most expensive of all our illnesses. As we look to the future, we are going to find that this disease, Alzheimer's, is going to grow over $1.5 trillion of costs by 2050, partly due to the baby boomers and their growth in the demography of this Nation, but also because of the extraordinary expense that this illness brings to us.

This is the power curve that we are looking at. If you are concerned about the deficit, you need to be concerned about Alzheimer's. If you are concerned about the American family, you need to be concerned about Alzheimer's.

Here is what we are looking at for what is the second biggest cost in the Federal budget, that is, Medicare and Medicaid. Here is the growth that we are looking over the period of the next 35 years, from some $122 billion to over $880 billion.

As you look at the Federal budget in the years ahead, as you look at Medicare, as you begin to think about the deficit that confronts this Nation, this is where you need to look because this is where the big expenditure is going to be made. It is going to be in Alzheimer's and related illnesses to it. This is it.

What can we do about this? We could sit and fuss and fume, we can take care of our seniors, or we can recognize the reality of what it means when we spend money on research, when we spend money on getting ahead of the illnesses. These are the major illnesses that confront America today.

You can take a look here. Breast cancer, there has been a decrease in mortality; prostate cancer, a decrease; heart disease, a 16 percent decrease; stroke, a 23 percent decrease; and of course, HIV/AIDS, an extraordinary 42 percent decrease in the deaths from these major illnesses.

Over here on the purple one on the right, Alzheimer's. Decrease? No. Increase? Sixty-eight percent increase from 2000 to 2010.

This is the reality of the most prevalent and most expensive and the most devastating disease that confronts Americans and really the rest of the world.

What can we do about it?

Let's take a look at this chart. Alzheimer's spending treatment versus research. Let's see. We are spending $150 billion on the treatment. This is Medicare and Medicaid, and research, oh, way down here, $566 million on research.

So if you want to drive the deficit to even greater depths, treat but don't do research. However, if you want to solve this problem, we know how to do it. In fact, we have done it many, many times.

If you take a look at cancer, we are spending $5.418 billion on cancer research. Cancer deaths are down. HIV, we are spending $2.978 billion on HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS deaths are down by 42 percent. Cardiovascular, $2 billion. Cardiovascular deaths, strokes and heart disease down. Alzheimer's, $566 million.

We know the answer. The question is whether we are willing to put our money where we can solve the most devastating, the most prevalent, and the most expensive of all illnesses.

Change this little purple, bring it back up perhaps to $2 billion a year, as we do with HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular, and cancer. Spend the research money. We are close in many, many ways across this Nation with programs that are under way.

Here is the specific ask that I make to this Congress: not $2 billion, but $200 million additional money in the appropriations that we are doing today--$200 million.

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