This is the price tag: $20.8 trillion. Because there is currently no way to stop or slow Alzheimer’s, that’s what we will all pay over the next generation to care for people with Alzheimer’s unless policymakers change the disease’s trajectory by adequately funding research for treatment.
At $20.8 trillion, Alzheimer’s will cost America more over the next 36 years than the total federal debt accrued over the last 36 years ($17.4 trillion). And, it is Medicare that will bear the greatest burden, so much that Alzheimer’s could bankrupt the federal insurance program.
A new report from the independent research firm The Lewin Group, commissioned by the Alzheimer’s Association, finds that on the current trajectory Medicare spending to care for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias will increase more than fourfold to $589 billion in 2050. That’s one of every $3 Medicare will spend in 2050, and nearly what we spend on all of Medicare today.
The daunting numbers come from the fact that the number of Americans ages 65 and older living with Alzheimer’s disease will triple in just over a generation. Worse, more of them will be in late-stage Alzheimer’s in 2050 than the total number of Americans with the disease today. These individuals will lose their ability to eat, bathe and manage bodily functions, and require constant care for years on end, until the disease finally kills them.
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, Alzheimer’s is already the nation’s most expensive disease. The nation and the federal budget clearly cannot afford to let Alzheimer’s stay this course, which is why there is bipartisan agreement to change it.