Rep. Michele Bachmann on the Cure Strategy

Rep. Michele Bachmann writes about the Cure Strategy in her hometown paper, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.    

Bachmann writes about the power of medical science and cures to not only help us physically, but also fiscally--because a cure is cheaper than care.

As Bachmann puts it:

It’s no secret that I disagree with President Obama on most issues. However, there was one line in particular in last week’s State of the Union address that caught my attention: His call to prioritize medical research to “unlock the answers to Alzheimer’s.”

The president is right. We need to unlock those answers, not only for humanitarian reasons, but also for fiscal reasons. Today more than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, a number that is expected to triple over the next 40 years.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the annual cost to care for Alzheimer’s patients is $172 billion. By 2050, the cumulative cost is projected to reach $20 trillion — a figure greater than our entire national debt. In other words, if the ravages of Alzheimer’s continue unchecked, our fiscal health, as well as our national health, will be greatly damaged.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Back in the 1940s and ’50s, polio epidemics stalked the American population. Economists estimated that the United States would spend $100 billion per year — mostly on wheelchairs, iron lungs and other equipment — providing treatment in the aftermath of the disease.

In 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk, working for private charity, the March of Dimes, developed his famous vaccine, which he then took to President Dwight Eisenhower. The Salk vaccine not only saved lives by stopping polio, but it saved money. Thanks to the vaccine, we spend virtually nothing in the United States on polio today.

If we did it once, we can do it again. The United States is home to state-of-the-art hospitals, world-renowned specialists and the greatest teaching institutions in the world.

Here in Minnesota, we have long been a leader in medical innovation. Our state is home to more than 400 medical-device companies. The pacemaker and early organ transplants were a result of our state’s great minds. In addition to saving lives, they created wealth, jobs and incentives for others to research and develop still more life-­enhancing products. And that’s one reason why I am fully committed to repealing Obamacare’s onerous medical-device tax.

Yet far too often in the larger health care debate, the discourse focuses heavily on insurance, and not enough on health.

Health insurance is not a synonym for health. Insurance, while necessary, is focused on financial, not medical, challenges. No amount of health insurance is going to give doctors the ability to help you if you show up at the hospital with Alzheimer’s or other kinds of at-present incurable diseases. The main driver of health care costs is illness, and the most effective way to make illness cheaper is by prevention and cures.

A commitment to prioritize medical breakthroughs should be led by visionaries in the public and private sectors, not crushed by bureaucrats and looted by trial lawyers. The successful effort against polio was just such a public-private partnership. Today, I am sure that investors and philanthropists will be eager to step forward with vast amounts of private capital on behalf of cures — but they need to see a clear path to success.

Unfortunately, after decades of overregulation and egregiously predatory tort litigation, the “pipeline” of new drugs has substantially dried up. So while we must keep our high ethical standards intact, we need a rigorous overhaul of the way we conduct research and develop new medicines, including reforming the Food and Drug Administration and shielding good-faith investments while still protecting the legitimate claims of medical victims.

It’s the 21st century; we have smartphones that can double as medical buddies and supercomputers that can data-crunch their way to new cures. With that sort of technological momentum on our side, there is no reason that we can’t power our way to a cure for diseases, including Alzheimer’s.

I’m proud to be known as one of the leading penny-pinchers in Congress, but investing in medical research to find cures, or even postponing the onset of diseases, will provide dramatic savings in the long term — not to mention incredible quality-of-life benefits.

America has always been a land of big thinkers, and if the president means what he says about medical research as a tool to improve our physical and fiscal health, I will be happy to work with him.

Moving forward on brain research--and economic growth, and fiscal sustainability.

The New York Times reports on a new brain-mapping project, to be launched by the Obama administration next month:

Scientists with the highest hopes for the project also see it as a way to develop the technology essential to understanding diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's as well as to find new therapies for a variety of mental illnesses.

Moreover, the project holds the potential of paving the way for advances in artificial intelligence.

The project, which could ultimately cost billions of dollars, is expected to be part of the president’s budget proposal next month. And, four scientists and representatives of research institutions said they had participated in planning for what is being called the Brain Activity Map project.

Leaders in both parties should realize that a new phase of healthcare politics has begun: The issue isn't just cutting, it's also growing--as in growing the economy, as in growing a healthier medical culture.   If we have those, then it will be easier to save money, over time, on entitlements. 

Eric Cantor on the Cure Strategy

My piece for Fox News Opinion.

"A Cure for Healthcare Costs"

My piece, "A Cure for Healthcare Costs," in The American Conservative. 

Alzheimer's Treatment Trends in UK Portend Higher Costs for US: A reminder, costly care is inevitable. The issue is whether we are wise enough to push for a cheaper cure.

Headline in the UK Telegraph: "Dementia sufferers 'abandoned', says Jeremy Hunt / Doctors are refusing to test for dementia because they think it is pointless while no 'cure' is available, the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says."

Some will say that indeed, there's no point in knowing the full extent of Alzheimer's in the population of the US, too, because there's no cure.   And so why spend money on treatment that might be minimally effective, or even ineffective?   Many of these naysayers, of course, work at OMB, CBO, CMS, and the health public policy establishment.    And so while "abandonment" is not the word that these bean-counters would use, it's the policy that they quietly support. 

But others--including the vast majority of voters and the politicians who represent them--will say that we should do everything possible for AD sufferers. Not just because it's compassionate, but also because it's a political imperative, once the news of possible treatments gets out.   

And finally, more treatment is smart.  Smart, that is, because the more we identify and treat, the more likely we are to be able to turn whatever treatments we have into better treatments, and from there, into a cure.    Of course, the proper utilization of big data would help a lot, in terms of getting quality feedback on the results of each patient's treatment, and all tweaks and improvements along the way. 

In the meantime, if there's a wider-spread realization that AD treatments might be available, then surely most victims would want those treatments, both in the UK and in the US.  So in other words, if the data here for the UK are also true for the US, then there's going to be a further spike in AD costs, as seen in Medicare, Medicaid, VA, and also private insurance.  And that cost-spike will come, even if "deficit hawk" policy makers in DC made a deal to forbid it.

Robert W. Patterson identifies a New Bipartisan Agenda, including the Cure Strategy

Bob Patterson, a veteran of the Bush 43 administration and a well-known conservative thinker and activist, put forth a bold agenda in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer.   Here's a key part of it, taking note of the pro-medical cure efforts of Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), and encouraging Republicans to join with Andrews:

Pivoting off another Pennsylvania first - the development of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk in 1955 - Corbett should collaborate with U.S. Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), who has called for an Apollo-style program to fight disease. The goal: Establish the Philadelphia area as a medical-research enterprise zone dedicated to finding cures for debilitating conditions including cell disorders or cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, autism, and all forms of dementia, including Alzheimer's.

A focus on cures rather than care would multiply the kind of breakthroughs achieved at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia last month when researchers used the virus that causes AIDS to cure a 6-year-old of leukemia. The zone would also include programs for wounded soldiers, ensuring full rehabilitation of injured Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. Key to this project: All research in the designated zone would be trial-lawyer free and streamlined for approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

The mechanics and specifics of financing these capital-intensive projects would have to be worked out. However, great countries - and visionary leaders - do not accept excuses for nixing promising initiatives that would reboot the economy, create good jobs, and expand the middle class. Great leaders find the resources and proceed.

Louis Woodhill on Serious Medicine Strategy

Louis Woodhill, a Houston-based software entrepreneur/political activist/Forbes columnist, writes: 

The right way (and, probably the only way) to reduce long-term Medicare costs is to find cures for the three major diseases of old age, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer.  The electorate would find a “serious medicine strategy” much more appealing than futile Medicare cost control initiatives.