{"id":636770,"date":"2026-05-11T15:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/636770\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T15:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:23:13","slug":"medicare-spending-far-less-than-expected-on-new-alzheimers-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/636770\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicare spending far less than expected on new Alzheimer&#8217;s drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"author-bio\">Bob Herman covers health insurance, government programs, hospitals, physicians, and other providers \u2014 reporting on how money influences those businesses and shapes what we all pay for care. He is also the author of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/signup\/health-care-inc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Health Care Inc. newsletter<\/a>. You can reach Bob on Signal at bobjherman.09.<\/p>\n<p>People on Medicare are not getting the recently approved Alzheimer\u2019s medications nearly as much as federal officials anticipated.<\/p>\n<p>Uptake for the drugs, Leqembi and Kisunla, has been so muted that Medicare is not forecasting significant spending on them in 2026 or 2027, a spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told STAT. It\u2019s a dramatic shift from two years ago, when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2024\/04\/11\/medicare-will-spend-billions-on-alzheimers-drug-leqembi-eisai-biogen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Medicare projected<\/a> it would spend billions of dollars annually on Leqembi alone.<\/p>\n<p>The lower-than-expected spending lines up with the challenges that the Alzheimer\u2019s drugs have faced since their approvals, neurologists and Medicare experts told STAT: The intravenous medications are not easy to administer and require a lot of imaging; the population of eligible patients is limited; and the drugs continue to have little meaningful benefits while carrying a risk of severe side effects like brain bleeding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-text\">STAT+ Exclusive Story<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-login\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"restricted-content-breaker-bg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765280600_844_stat-plus-breaker-bg.png\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"stat-plus-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tThis article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tUnlock this article \u2014 plus in-depth analysis, newsletters, premium events, and news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-breaker-wrapper-cta mobile\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta mobile\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tIndividual plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tGroup plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button view-all\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker view all plans\" aria-label=\"View All Plans\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">View All Plans<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-text\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTo read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button restricted-button\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker subscribe cta 1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Herman covers health insurance, government programs, hospitals, physicians, and other providers \u2014 reporting on how money influences&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[105426,244,10212,245,10790,48123,97,252,253,247,1343,5599,248],"class_list":["post-636770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-biogen","tag-biotechnology","tag-cms","tag-drug-development","tag-drug-prices","tag-eli-lilly","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-pharmaceuticals","tag-policy","tag-public-health","tag-stat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}