Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Clinton Reveals $20B Plan To Cure Alzheimer's By 2025
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday proposed a $2 billion-a-year investment in Alzheimer鈥檚 research, more than double the amount in the recently passed appropriations bill, to combat the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. The plan, which would be paid for by changes in the tax code, emerged out of conversations with voters who regularly ask Mrs. Clinton about Alzheimer鈥檚 at town-hall-style events in Iowa and New Hampshire. (Chozick, 12/22)
The plan would set aside $2 billion a year for Alzheimer鈥檚, tracking recommendations made by experts in the field, in an effort to find a cure in the next 10 years. The sum is about four times what the National Institutes of Health says it has spent annually on Alzheimer鈥檚 research in recent years. (Nicholas, 12/22)
From 2000 to 2013, Alzheimer鈥檚 deaths increased 71%, while heart disease fatalities dropped 14%. Unlike cancer and heart attacks, there is no known cure. 鈥淎lzheimer鈥檚 is the red-haired stepchild among the top diseases threatening the aging and our health care system,鈥 said Alzheimer鈥檚 pioneer Rudolph Tanzi, the neurology professor who discovered many of the genes, including the first ones, leading to Alzheimer's. (Przybyla, 12/22)
More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's today, and the number is expected to triple to 15 million by 2050. If the government's spending on the disease grows at the same rate, it would jump from $586 million in 2014 to $1 trillion in 2050. 鈥淭his is a tsunami, an epidemic that could single-handedly crush Medicare, Medicaid鈥 It鈥檚 an unmet medical need of the greatest type," Rudolph E. Tanzi, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School says. (Eunjung Cha, 12/22)
In other 2016 campaign news, The Washington Post fact checks Marco Rubio's health care claims聽鈥
Presidential candidate Marco Rubio has claimed that he inserted key language in the budget bill. In reality, in the sausage making of the law, Rubio didn鈥檛 make the sausage that has wounded the law. He had wanted to make a different sausage. But through deft marketing, he managed to slap his name on this one. So far, with the exception of a careful report in the Associated Press, much of the media have gotten this story wrong. (Kessler, 12/23)
