Biden Cuts Off Access To Alzheimer’s Drugs As He Pushes Medicare To Gut Benefits

The Biden administration is restricting Medicare coverage of a Food and Drug Administration approved drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease, just days after a new government report revealed Biden’s spending plans may require deep cuts to Medicare benefits.

The Biden administration’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Feb. 22 it will restrict coverage of all FDA-approved drugs using monoclonal antibodies directed against amyloid for Medicare beneficiaries suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

The announcement drew bipartisan requests from Congress to reconsider. 

 “President Biden and Washington Democrats have waged a sustained assault on Medicare, and this week’s decision by CMS is the latest example. Their reckless spending agenda threatens hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the program, and now the Biden administration is doubling down by restricting Medicare coverage of FDA-approved Alzheimer’s treatments,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy Rodgers (R-WA) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO).

This is an unprecedented overreach by the administration to override its own FDA. It is setting a troubling precedent for a massive health care bureaucracy to restrict coverage to an entire class of drugs, regardless of the potential for life-saving benefits to patients,” said Rodgers and Smith.

“The Biden Administration’s move to restrict coverage for novel Alzheimer’s drugs will chill innovation in developing new medicines and treatments for patients facing life-threatening illnesses. President Biden owes an explanation to the millions of patients, caregivers, and families praying for breakthrough cures who will now be denied access, and whose Medicare coverage will become less guaranteed,” said Rodgers and Smith.

The issue has been brewing since last year, when the Biden administration signaled they may refuse to cover the drug despite FDA approval

House Republican Leaders wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in February 2022 urging the Biden administration not to deny Alzheimer’s patients the treatments they deserve. 

“On January 11, 2022, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed National Coverage Determination (NCD) decision memorandum that would set a new precedent for restricting coverage of all Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs using monoclonal antibodies directed against amyloid for Medicare beneficiaries suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease (AD),” Republican leaders wrote at the time.

We have significant concerns about what this decision, if finalized, could mean for the more than 6 million American families suffering from AD, including those with other neurological or medical conditions such as Down Syndrome, who may be effectively prohibited from receiving the drug under the proposed process,” they wrote.

Michael Bingham