[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 81 (Thursday, May 12, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2494-S2495]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. COLLINS (for herself, Mr. Warner, Mrs. Capito, Mr. Markey, 
        Mr. Moran, and Mr. Menendez):
  S. 4203. A bill to extend the National Alzheimer's Project; to the 
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce two bills aimed 
at continuing the important progress we have made so far to prevent and 
effectively treat Alzheimer's disease. I know how devastating this 
disease is. My father, grandfather, and two uncles all died from 
Alzheimer's. I am committed to this effort both as a person whose 
beloved family members have suffered from this disease as well as a 
Senator concerned about the impact on our families and our healthcare 
budgets.
  When I founded the Congressional Alzheimer's Task Force in the Senate 
in 1999, there was virtually no focus on Alzheimer's in Washington. 
Twelve years ago, I coauthored the bipartisan National Alzheimer's 
Project Act with my colleague Senator Evan Bayh. Before we passed that 
legislation, there was no coordinated, strategic national plan to focus 
our efforts to defeat Alzheimer's and ensure that our resources are 
maximized and leveraged. NAPA

[[Page S2495]]

fixed this by convening a panel of experts to create a coordinated 
strategic national plan to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer's 
disease by 2025. The expert council updates the plan annually.
  We have made some progress in our efforts to find a treatment, means 
of prevention, or cure, but Alzheimer's still costs our Nation an 
astonishing $321 billion per year, including $206 billion in costs to 
Medicare and Medicaid. If we continue along this trajectory, 
Alzheimer's is projected to claim the minds of 12.7 million seniors and 
nearly surpass $1 trillion in annual costs by 2050. It takes a 
tremendous toll on families, too. In 2021, family caregivers provided 
16 billion hours of unpaid care for loved ones with dementia. That job 
is often 24/7 and often harms the health of the caregiver.
  The National Alzheimer's Project Act is set to expire in 2025, so we 
need to reauthorize this critical legislation to make sure that our 
research investments remain coordinated, and we can maximize their 
impact.
  The first bill that I will introduce today with my colleagues 
Senators Warner, Capito, Markey, Moran, and Menendez, is the NAPA 
Reauthorization Act. It would reauthorize NAPA through 2035 and 
modernize the legislation to reflect strides we have made understanding 
the disease, like including a new focus on promoting healthy aging and 
reducing risk factors.
  The second bill that I will introduce, with my colleagues Senators 
Markey, Capito, Warner, Moran, and Menendez, is the Alzheimer's 
Accountability and Investment Act. That bill would continue through 
2035 a requirement that the Director of the National Institutes of 
Health submit an annual budget to Congress estimating the funding 
necessary for NIH to fully implement NAPA's research goals. Only two 
other areas of biomedical research--cancer and HIV/AIDs--have been the 
subject of special budget development aimed at speeding discovery, and 
this ``bypass budget,'' as it is known, helps us to understand the 
additional funding needed to find better treatments, a means of 
prevention, and ultimately a cure for Alzheimer's disease.
  Nearly half of baby boomers reaching age 85 will either be afflicted 
with Alzheimer's or caring for someone who has it. In many ways, 
Alzheimer's is the defining disease of this generation. We have made 
tremendous progress in recent years to boost funding for Alzheimer's 
research, which holds great promise to ending this disease that has had 
a devastating effect on millions of Americans and their families. The 
two bills I introduce today will maintain our momentum and make sure 
that we do not take our foot off the pedal just as our investments in 
basic research is beginning to translate into potential new treatments. 
We must not let Alzheimer's define our children's generation as it has 
ours.
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