Make Early Alzheimer Disease Medications Accessible to All, Now
FDA-approved early Alzheimer medications should be covered by Medicare and other insurers and made immediately available to all those who will benefit.
Alzheimer is a serious disease, according to 71% of respondents; another 18% say it is both a serious disease and a normal part of aging.
I am concerned that I, a family member, or a friend could develop Alzheimer disease.
Medicare should provide all beneficiaries access to FDA-approved Alzheimer drugs, just as they do to FDA-approved drugs for all other diseases.
Medicare should immediately cover the costs of these FDA-approved drugs to treat early Alzheimer disease.
The government should not require patients to participate in medical research studies on any FDA-approved drug in order to get access to that drug.
Medicare should cover all FDA-approved drugs and therapies for Alzheimer disease and allow patients and their doctors to make decisions based on risks, benefits, and individual health needs.
If Medicare does not act, Congress should step in to require that Medicare cover FDA-approved drugs and therapies that can slow the progression of early Alzheimer disease.
I would be more likely to vote for a candidate for elected office if that candidate supported requiring Medicare to cover FDA-approved drugs and therapies that can slow the progression of early Alzheimer disease.
I would be willing to pay $5 more a month for health insurance to cover FDA-approved drugs and therapies that can slow the progression of early Alzheimer disease.
When the topic is Alzheimer disease and more specifically when the focus is on access to and insurance coverage for FDA approved medications to treat the disease in its earliest stages, American voters of all political affiliations are nearly unanimous in support of immediate change to existing policies, according to results of a recent poll on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) program limiting access to the new drugs.1
Since April 2022, Medicare has required "coverage with evidence development" (CED) for any FDA-approved therapy for early Alzheimer disease, according to a news release1 from the Alliance for Aging Research. The CED mandates that coverage of selected treatments require Medicare beneficiaries to enroll in clinical trials. Further, there are strict CED eligibility criteria limit the health care professionals and hospitals that can qualify to run the studies.1
The net effect is only a small fraction of Medicare beneficiaries have gotten access to the two current early Alzheimer’s treatments available, Leqembi and Kisunla.2 "No other FDA-approved drugs for on-label use in other diseases have been subject to CED," according to the news release.1
The Alliance, along with UsAgainstAlzheimer's and the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, commissioned Lake Research Partners to conduct a phone survey of 1000 US voters, asking them to rank their agreement/disagreement with the CMS policy and about their personal experiences of Alzheimer disease. The poll was conducted by phone and online between August 26 and September 3, 2024.1
