When Congress returns from August recess, lawmakers will face a legislative agenda crowded with funding deadlines and competing priorities. Amid the chaos, one bipartisan bill deserves to move without delay: the ASAP Act, which would create a coverage pathway for new Alzheimerās detection tests, helping patients get diagnosed earlier and stay independent longer.
Introduced in 2025, the bill cannot afford to sit idle for another year.
Alzheimerās is a disease of time. Its progression can be meaningfully slowed if it is caught early, and we now have the tools to do just that. Breakthrough diagnostics, including biomarker tests that can detect signs of Alzheimerās with a simple blood draw, offer a faster, less invasive way to identify the disease.
Diagnosing Alzheimerās early matters because it buys time to change the course of the disease. ResearchĀ increasingly shows that lifestyle interventions can help preserve cognitive function, while new disease-modifying therapiesĀ have been shown to slow cognitive decline. In both cases, patients stand to benefit most when they can act early.
These innovations make early detection far more valuable than it once was. But while scientists and private-sector innovators have raced ahead, Medicare policy has failed to keep pace. Medicare has no dedicated pathway for evaluating and covering new blood-based diagnostic tools, meaning FDA clearance alone does not ensure beneficiaries can access them through the program. The ASAP Act would modernize that process, creating a pathway for qualifying screening tests to be considered for coverage.
Americans are ready for that shift. According to pollingĀ by Market Institute and Trump pollster Fabrizio Ward, 92% of voters support the ASAP Act, and 90% support expanding Medicare coverage for FDA-cleared Alzheimerās blood tests and FDA-approved treatments. That support cuts across party lines, a rare consensus that coverage should keep pace with the science.
As more people realize the benefits of early diagnosis, public health leaders can start to make a dent in the tremendous costs of care. In 2026 alone, health and long-term care costsĀ associated with Alzheimerās and other dementias are projected to reach $409 billion, with Medicare and Medicaid shouldering nearly two-thirds and families paying another $103 billion out of pocket. And that figure does not begin to capture the emotional toll Alzheimerās takes on patients and families. In other words, taxpayers are already paying the price for a system that spends heavily once patients become sick and dependent, while moving slow to embrace tools that could help them remain healthier and independent longer.
Earlier diagnosis offers a chance to change that. If patients can intervene sooner and remain independent longer, they could delay the need for long-term care and face fewer medical costs down the road. A University of Southern California analysisĀ found that slowing cognitive decline before age 70 could reduce nursing home stays by nearly two years and cut medical spending by $48,000 per patient. And, by some estimates, raising individual healthy life expectancy by just one year would be worth about $566,000Ā per person.
Multiply those savings across millions of Americans, and early Alzheimerās diagnosis is not simply good health policy; it is good fiscal policy.
Charles Sauer is president of the Market Institute.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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