[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 24, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4610-S4611]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ALZHEIMER'S & BRAIN AWARENESS MONTH

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, June is Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness 
Month--an opportunity to join the global conversation about this equal 
opportunity killer, Alzheimer's.
  Everyone with a brain is at risk to develop Alzheimer's. Worldwide 
right now there are 47 million people living with Alzheimer's and with 
other dementias. Without a change, these numbers are expected to grow 
to 76 million people globally with Alzheimer's by the year 2030.
  In 1998, my mother passed away from Alzheimer's. That is the year 
that I created the bipartisan Congressional Alzheimer's Task Force. The 
reason I did it was that it is very hard--as people who have an 
Alzheimer's patient in their family know--to deal with this disease 
while my mother had it. But for me, it became something very important, 
something that I felt that Congress had a responsibility to deal with. 
For 13 years, my mother just stayed in our living room, being cared for 
by my father. My mother was quite fortunate because my father had been 
a milkman. The right arm of a milkman carrying milk bottles for decades 
is the strongest right arm you can have. My father could care for my 
mother. My father could keep my mother in our home. But not every 
family has a strong right arm of a milkman.
  Keeping an Alzheimer's patient at home is a difficult task. We have 
to accept the fact that statistically, we now have more than 5 million 
Americans with Alzheimer's. Let me say that again: 5 million Americans, 
as we gather here on the Senate floor, have Alzheimer's in our country, 
but that is before all the baby boomers have retired. By the time all 
of the baby boomers in America have retired, 15 million of them are 
going to have Alzheimer's. Like my family, someone else in each one of 
those families is going to have Alzheimer's as well because they will 
be the family caregiver. That will be about 30 million people by the 
time all the baby boomers have retired whose principal reality in life 
will be this one disease.
  How big is this disease as a drain on our country? This year we are 
going to spend in Medicare and Medicaid dollars $153 billion on 
Alzheimer's patients.
  I will say that again. This year in America, with 5 million people 
with the disease, we are going to spend $153 billion. How big is that 
number? While we are debating the Defense bill for our country--how big 
is the Defense bill to protect our entire country here and overseas? It 
is $560 billion. One disease, Alzheimer's, is going to cost us $153 
billion. By the time all 15 million baby boomers have the disease, the 
amount of Federal money in Medicare and Medicaid that we will be 
spending will be equal to the entire defense budget of our country. 
That is obviously not sustainable.
  We have to find a cure for Alzheimer's not just for our country but 
for every other country in the world. We have to be the leader. Our 
caregivers are the heroes today, but even heroes need help. As the true 
neurological wasting effects take hold of the next generation of 
Alzheimer's patients, the costs to our society will mount unless we 
make the smart investments to treat and defeat this disease. We have an 
opportunity here in the Senate to provide the leadership.

[[Page S4611]]

  For every $27,000 in 2015 that we are going to spend from the U.S. 
Senate on Alzheimer's out of the Medicare and Medicaid budget, the 
National Institutes of Health invests $100 in trying to find a cure. 
That is right. You heard me correctly. For every $27,000 of Federal 
money this year on an Alzheimer's patient, we are spending $100 to try 
to find a cure.
  The NIH budget has to increase, and it has to increase dramatically 
because in the long run we cannot balance the Federal budget if in 30 
years one disease is going to consume as much Federal money as the 
entire defense budget in our country.
  Every 67 seconds, someone new in this country develops Alzheimer's. 
In my State of Massachusetts, 12 percent of all seniors have 
Alzheimer's.
  We need a breakthrough in research. Research is medicine's field of 
dreams from which we harness the findings that give hope to families so 
that one day children will have to look to the history books to find 
that there ever was such a disease as Alzheimer's.
  Right now is not the time to cut funding at the National Institutes 
of Health. They are not only the National Institutes of Health, they 
are also the national institutes of hope, and we must give that hope to 
American families that we can find a cure. We cannot cut that budget. 
We cannot allow sequestration to come in and slash the NIH budget once 
again. In 2015, NIH has buying power that is 20 percent lower than it 
was 10 years ago. This is at a point where it should be ramped up 20 
percent higher, not lower.
  This is a debate which we should be having. The terrorist call that 
people fear is that some doctor will call their house to them that yet 
another member of their family has Alzheimer's or some other tragic 
disease.
  We need to increase the NIH budget. We need to give that hope to 
American families. And that is why Senator Crapo and I worked to pass 
the Alzheimer's Accountability Act into law. It requires the Director 
of NIH to submit an annual budget directly to Congress outlining what 
resources are needed to meet the goal of preventing and treating 
Alzheimer's disease by 2025. That is why my colleagues, Senator 
Stabenow, Senator Collins, Senator Capito, and I introduced the Hope 
for Alzheimer's Act, which will allow Medicare beneficiaries to receive 
comprehensive care-planning services when they are diagnosed with 
Alzheimer's. That is also why Senator Wyden and I included the 
Independence at Home Program as part of the Affordable Care Act. This 
program allows chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries, such as those 
with Alzheimer's, to receive primary care services in the comfort of 
their home. Independence at Home allows teams of doctors and nurses to 
continue to care for severely ill Medicare patients in their home by 
bringing the house calls of the yesteryear physicians into the 21st 
century.
  Just last week, some game-changing data was released on the success 
of the first year of this program. We learned that when implemented 
properly, the Independence at Home Program has the potential to save 
$21 billion of Medicare money over the next decade, and at the same 
time it also improves the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries. 
This is a win-win situation. It is possible to design Medicare so that 
it works smarter, saves money, and improves the lives of beneficiaries.
  Patients want to be cared for in their living rooms, not in the 
emergency room. That is what my father, John Markey the milkman, was 
able to provide for my mother with Alzheimer's. That is what the 
Independence at Home Program does. It is a program where nurse 
practitioners, physicians, and nursing homes are able to say: We are 
going to help to keep your loved one at home. We will give you the help 
that makes that possible.
  Independence at Home is steering our health care system toward a 
focus of quality and not simply the quantity of care.
  As we build a future free of Alzheimer's disease, Congress and the 
American people need a blueprint on how to be more effective at 
prioritizing Federal resources to reach our goal. When America makes a 
plan, America can do great things. We need an action plan to cure 
Alzheimer's and to care for those who suffer from it.
  In the 1960s, President Kennedy called for a mission to the Moon, and 
we accomplished great things to make that happen. In the 21st century, 
it is not a mission to the Moon, it is a mission to the mind which is 
our challenge, and we must make the same kind of investment in research 
that was made in the 1960s.
  We did not allow the Soviet Union to dominate. We cannot allow this 
disease to devastate 15 million lives with Alzheimer's in this baby 
boom generation. The legacy we should be leaving is that we found the 
cure. It was first identified more than 100 years ago. We now have to 
make sure that our legacy in the 21st century is that we have been able 
to build the momentum to fund the research that ensures families in our 
country have hope.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

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