California Not Prepared for Rise in Alzheimer’s Disease

"[W]e cannot have a serious conversation about the economics of health care, or about saving Medicare and Medi-Cal, or reforming Social Security, without addressing Alzheimer's disease," which "affects all of these" issues, William Fisher, CEO of the Alzheimer's Association of Northern California/Northern Nevada, writes in a San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece.

Fisher notes that legislation (SB 321) requiring the state to create an Alzheimer's disease plan to guide state public policy is estimated to cost the state less than $200,000 -- "a speck in the California budget" and something that eight other states already have done.

The measure was placed in the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file, Fisher writes, where it is not "dead, but perilously close to it."

Fisher criticizes legislative leaders for being "either unable or unwilling to find a way to let this bill move forward."

He argues, "This absence of leadership threatens the future of thousands of Californians who are busy taking care of themselves today only to find California unprepared when they arrive in huge numbers tomorrow" (Fisher, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21).