This is how we make a country go bankrupt….
You may criticize the dollar number I used for this cartoon as too high. The number being tossed around is $56K per year. The problem is, this does not factor in the frequent MRI scans needed to monitor possible brain swelling on the drug.
Brain swelling? Ouch. Just to say that phrase gives me a headache.
What about infusion center fees?
Will the drug price go up higher after a year?
Add it all up and I bet $100k per year is a better estimate.
The potential here for a tidal wave of demand is depressing.
Imagine all of your patients who notice memory problems as they hit Medicare age! It’s easier to count the ones who DON’T have memory problems. How many of them will frantically demand the drug?How easily will you be able to stop them?
Imagine the advertising campaigns on CNN, Fox News, The Weather Channel, etc. Everyone is going to want this drug!
We are turning common diseases into bank-breaking illnesses. Diabetes has become awesomely expensive. Cancer has turned into a chronic illness, costing tens of thousands of dollars per month. Now, we can add Alzheimer’s Disease (and that’s before you add in costs of long-term care).
How do we get control of this?
Until an economical process is developed to stop the disease process, nothing will change. Since Alzheimer’s is encoded into some of our genomes (and I suspect it’s there in different forms) I don’t believe this will be an easy nut to crack.
If it’s cracked, it might be like HIV where one has to be under some form of treatment for the rest of their life to keep the disease process at bay.
Arresting Alzheimer’s if probably going to be the best we can hope for but I suspect I won’t live to see it. If I do, great.
I welcome it. Pull the bandaid off.
Short answer, we can’t because we won’t. The majority of retirees actually believe that they have paid for all of the Medicare they receive, taking no notice of the medical inflation caused by their unrestrained demand, allowing them to believe what is provably false. If the shuffleboard set truly paid for their own Medicare costs, then the program would be a net neutral balance on the federal budget (it ain’t). This new drug will be just another demonstration of this destructive Ponzi mentality.