UsAgainstAlzheimer’s Statement on the Graham-Cassidy Health Care Bill

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WASHINGTON, DC (September 25, 2017) – Following is a statement by George Vradenburg, Co-Founder and Chairman of UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, about the Graham-Cassidy health care bill which is currently before the U.S. Senate.

“Americans living with Alzheimer’s need help. What they don’t need is the Graham-Cassidy health care bill which poses a real threat to the five million people and their families dying from the disease. 

“The bill makes deep cuts to Medicaid, a program that one in four individuals with Alzheimer’s or dementia relies on to help cover a range of services including home- and community-based assistance. The extreme duration of, and dependency created by, the disease – often lasting 20 or more years – with no current cure or means of prevention brings most individuals and families to the verge of bankruptcy and Medicaid eligibility long before the disease has run its course.

“As currently written, the bill also rolls back protections for people with preexisting conditions including Alzheimer’s and dementia, which affect millions of people under age 65 who are ineligible for Medicare, and it will lead to loss of insurance and annual out-of-pocket spending of between $41,000 and $56,000.

“We must find a way to fix our health coverage system, but we cannot do so at the expense of the millions of American families that are fighting Alzheimer’s. We urge Senators to vote against Graham-Cassidy.”

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UsAgainstAlzheimer’s (UsA2) is an innovative non-profit organization demanding – and delivering – a solution to Alzheimer’s. Driven by the suffering of millions of families, UsAgainstAlzheimer’s presses for greater urgency from government, industry and the scientific community in the quest for an Alzheimer's cure – accomplishing this through effective leadership, collaborative advocacy, and strategic investments. 

Founded in 2010, UsAgainstAlzheimer’s has worked across sectors to: (1) secure the national goal of preventing and effectively treating Alzheimer’s by 2025 and help secure nearly $500 million in additional public funding for Alzheimer’s research over the past few years; (2) drive global efforts that resulted in the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations, the G7, to embrace a similar 2025 goal and to call for greater levels of research investment and collaboration; and (3) forge industry commitments to improve efficiencies for an expedited drug discovery and approval process. More information can be found at: http://www.usagainstalzheimers.org/.

 

CONTACT:


Ranit Schmelzer    
202-538-1065    
[email protected]