The government has decided curing Alzheimer’s Disease isn’t worth the expense. That’s the inevitable conclusion one must reach when weighing the evidence.
I’ve written on this subject before. In a post called Biden Opposing Alzheimer’s Progress, I discussed the report by The Wall Street Journal editorial board that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) took the unprecedented step last year of limiting coverage of novel Alzheimer’s drugs. Normally, if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves a drug, Medicare pays for it. But CMS said it wasn’t convinced that a new class of Alzheimer’s drugs is “reasonable and necessary” for seniors.
In that post, I mentioned two new drugs for Alzheimer’s treatment that have been approved by the FDA, but CMS refuses to pay for – Aduhelm and Leqembi. Both have been shown to remove amyloid plaques from the brain, believed to be the cause of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Neurologists posit that removing amyloid could slow progression. A high-dose of Aduhelm removed 71% of plaque buildup. Patients in one trial who received the highest dose also showed 25% to 28% less decline in memory and problem-solving. A second trial showed unclear benefits in part because patients were on the highest dose for less time. FDA, to its credit, showed regulatory flexibility and approved the drug through its accelerated approval pathway based on amyloid clearance.
But Progressives howled about the price at $56,000 per year. But when the manufacturer, Biogen, lowered the price by half, CMS still refused to allow Medicare patients to receive the drug. Then, in January, a new drug named Leqembi was approved by the FDA that showed even more promise in effective treatment. Once again, CMS refused to cover the drug. In response, 20 Senators, including Democrats Gary Peters and Amy Klobuchar, plus 74 House Members including 38 Democrats have joined the fight. The House Members said in a letter to CMS that “access to disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer’s disease will be extremely limited, nearly nonexistent,” resulting in “irreversible disease progression” and “added burdens for patient caregivers.” But CMS was still unmoved, even though evaluating the safety and efficacy of new drugs is not their role – that’s the role of the FDA.
Joe Grogan, writing for The Wall Street Journal, tells us now we have a third new promising drug that is experiencing the same CMS pushback. The drug is manufactured by Eli Lilly and is called Donanemab. It represents the strongest showing against Alzheimer’s to date. Yet CMS is denying seniors and their families access to these new treatments, and rebuffing innovators who have produced the biggest breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s in two decades.
This issue has bipartisan support – Alzheimer’s Disease is no respecter of political ideology. Democratic and Republican lawmakers hammered CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure on the policy before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health last week. The same day, 26 attorneys general from red and blue states sent Ms. Brooks-LaSure and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra a letter urging them to expand access. Both groups highlighted the administration’s conflicting policy on the matter, noting that the Department of Veterans Affairs granted coverage for Eisai and Biogen’s treatment in February.
The authors say, “In many ways, we are today with Alzheimer’s where we were with cancer 40 years ago. When President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act of 1971, the five-year survival rate was below 50%. After decades of investment, supported by policies rewarding incremental innovation, the rate is approaching 70%. It is nearly 100% for breast, prostate and other cancers caught in the early stages. Similar progress is possible for Alzheimer’s—and the first step is getting FDA-approved treatments out of CED.”
This is not surprising to those who understand the mindset of socialized medicine advocates like the Biden Administration. In all socialized medicine systems, rationing of healthcare according to the value of the individual to society is a mainstay of policy. One can only conclude that seniors are not deemed important enough to justify the expense in this administration.
