Last December a $1 billion bill passed Congress with bipartisan support. This once would have been page 14 news, now it’s a headline. Getting Congress to agree on anything has become a miracle on the order of the loaves and fishes. So on what common ground did Republicans and Democrats manage to meet? Alzheimer’s.

The bipartisan willingness to let the government spend money on this may be because even members of Congress have mothers and fathers they don’t want to see reduced to the agony and indignity of Alzheimer’s. Or, given the average age of members and their well-developed egos, like the rest of us they may live in terror of losing what’s left of their minds.

But actual concern for the health of republic may also be at work, especially its fiscal health. Anyone who can balance a checkbook can see that spending $1 billion a year on research is petty cash compared to the cost of the disease if unchecked. Today, five million Americans have Alzheimer’s and fifteen million are full or part-time caregivers. The cost of Alzheimer’s in direct expenses, not to mention disrupted lives, careers, in opportunity costs you might say, is $200 billion a year.

The huge baby boomer generation is now between the ages of 70 and 52. Over the next three decades they are expected to quadruple the number of Alzheimer’s sufferers, create a tsunami of red ink, and a society resembling a zombie movie. By 2050, caring for Alzheimer’s patients is projected to rise to $600 billion a year, roughly equal to the entire budget this year for the Department of Defense or 80% of annual expenses now for all government health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Something’s got to give, and it may not be taxpayers. The crux of the dilemma is that Alzheimer’s, alone of the top ten killers, is the only disease for which there is no prevention, no cure, and no treatment – just a long, lingering, bankrupting misery. It’s estimated that delaying the onset of the disease by just five years could save $350 billion over ten years. Clearly, a cure would be preferable and prevention ideal.

The good news is that genetic sleuths are on the case. The discovery that Downs’s syndrome victims are more likely to get Alzheimer’s helped pinpoint a chromosome for study. Similar clues have been gleaned from the fact that those with rheumatoid arthritis are less likely to get Alzheimer’s while African-Americans and Amerindians are at greater risk. Perhaps a magic genetic bullet is within reach.

And yet. When the Mercury astronauts were circling the earth, it was confidently predicted that virtually unlimited, low cost, pollution free energy was just around the corner thanks to controlled fusion. Over fifty years have passed and we are still waiting for that breakthrough. Similarly, fifty years ago in 1966 cancer was the second leading cause of death, accounting for 17% of American expirations. Shortly thereafter the war on cancer was declared. Research dollars were spent lavishly. Smoking has declined markedly. And today, cancer is the second leading cause of death accounting for 23% of us.

So, when it comes to Alzheimer’s, fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge may speedily pass away. But I’m not counting on it. Like fusion and cancer, it may prove a hard nut to crack. But if the government weren’t willing to fund research, there’d be no hope at all, a prospect as dismal as an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. So, two cheers for Congress.