Posted at 11:45 a.m., Tuesday, April 3, 2001

Alzheimer's cost expected to skyrocket

Associated Press

WASHINGTON ­ A wave of baby boomers with Alzheimer's threatens to overwhelm Medicare and other health programs, according to a group seeking more federal money for research to prevent or at least stall the disease.

Alzheimer's, which robs the elderly of memory and the ability to care for themselves, already costs the federal government about $50 billion, the Alzheimer's Association said in a report today. The group wants Congress to double the money spent researching the ailment, which has no cure.

In the next decade, the report says, government costs to treat Alzheimer's patients are expected to reach $82.3 billion for increased hospital and doctors' visits for approximately 5.5 million sufferers.

"If Alzheimer's is not stopped in its tracks, it will bankrupt the nation," Emmy-winning actor David Hyde Pierce told Senate lawmakers who oversee health spending.

Pierce, who plays uptight psychiatrist Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom "Frasier," lost his father to Alzheimer's disease. "It is already bankrupting individual families," he said.

The Alzheimer's Association planned to detail at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing today some of the damage expected to Medicare, whose pending financial troubles have been the focus of budget battles in Congress.

The federal insurance for the elderly and disabled doesn't directly cover two main expenses associated with Alzheimer's – prescription medicine and nursing home stays. But the group predicts Medicare will foot a $49.3 billion bill in 2010 for sufferers who are unable to manage their treatments for other diseases, such as diabetes.And the costs will come long before 2050, when the number of victims triples to 14 million as the baby boom generation reaches the high-risk age groups, the association's report said.

The Senate Appropriations subcommittee on health spending is considering how to spend an administration budget that includes a $2.8 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health. The Alzheimer's group wants Congress to add $200 million of that to the $500 million spent each year on Alz heimer's research.

Federal research centers are overseeing many major Alzheim er's studies, and need money to increase their trials before more aging Americans get the disease, said Judy Riggs, a lobbyist for the Alzheimer's Association.