He gave 2 billion to nih, which is more than 5 . Its 5 plus inflation. Pretty darn good, better than the house, but better than the president and he did it at the expense of a lot of other good things in the bill. Dont get me wrong. Im not happy with the way he approached it, but he was sensitized by the researchers in st. Louis. Washington university to the need for medical research. And i believe this crosses the spectrum. We have to reach the point where we take the research and innovation and say this is a special consideration of the United States and the future. Its not going to be to the same budget control rules as z other expenditures. Last night Steve Kornacki showed an interview about how you and he were gym buddies and turned marco rubio around on immigration and used the gym as a Hunting Ground to turn people over. Who are some of your targets that you might like to was Chuck Schumer lying . I go to the senate gym daily. He said that republicans go early and democrats go late. Thats why i try to be there first at 5 30. I go there every day for no obvious reason. We talk about these issues. And theres an opportunity there. Your guard is down when youre sweating and puchffing and all the rest of this stuff. I have solved some big problems in the gym. I caught them at a vulnerable moment. I think approaching this issue on a human side makes a big big difference. Trying to get just beyond the dollars and crepts and talk to people people, he and i have met many times to talk about this issue. This is reaching into so many families across america, the alzheimers challenge. We see whats coming. The wave of not only cost to the government, cost to the families and what they are going through dealing with alzheimers. I think theres Fertile Ground here. One of the issues, susan will be joining us midway through. E she has targeted 2025 as the target date that she thinks an alzheimers treatment should be targeted calling this a Vital National issue and moving around. And you have a different approach sort of looking at prevention and treatment and more realistically by 2050. When you look legislatively and you talk to scientists, we had an incredible woman this morning. Stacey raised 217 million in the largest biomedical first round ever. When you see that amount of money coming into the private sector, alzheimers related research or Degenerative Research and you look at technology and the fast changing are we being too modest . Do you think ten years out we might be able to achieve more. Finely. It was nixons war on cancer that we see a 1 decline in cancer mortality on an annual basis. Politicians like to set target dates. It gives us some way to measure how were doing. I think the honest answer is we just dont know. Did you see the Fortune Magazine cover story on alzheimers. It jumped right off the rack. It was a cover story about biojen and what they are doing and its promising two different drugs, two different approaches. But what we know is when it comes to lilly, the National Laboratory in chicago lilly has a fulltime office there using the advanced source and make it work. You can lose me in a second when you get into this conversation, but i get that there are certain things that we have diagnostic tools. Also computing translational science and are using computers to do millions of tests that used to be unimaginable. So what im saying the pace of change and the pace of discovery is almost impossible to predict, but to set targets and hold politicians to the targets, that makes sense. Thats why i picked ten years. And i dont know if thats the right number or what, but if were incentivized to move towards targets, were not going to fall off and forget our responsibility. I have heard you speak on so many different topics. Youre always passionate and have found the soft point of where legislation might make a difference. I got an email and this is going to be out of left field. It has nothing to do with what were talking about today. Why demonstrates how a car is hacked theres a former nsa hacker and somebody with wired magazine was driving his car and it was hacked. This is a sensational text where they are throwing in a bill into the auto safety act. It made me think in your world to sustain interest in any one topic must be so hard. We have a lot of folks here today in washington coming to elevate the broader discussion on whats going on with Alzheimers Research in this area. But tomorrow its hacking a car. The next day im interested from a legislative what advice or counsel do you have for people who have been struggling for decades with such a dramatic problem on how to sustain interest. Because it seems to me a very difficult challenge given the number of things hitting the legislative docket. Theres a fellow who passed away a few years ago. Well known man who worked and became head of the the Motion Picture association. They once asked him about speeches. He says theres six words which i always put in a speech, which i think make a difference. And those six words are let me tell you a story. And when it comes to my world of politics, i have to get beyond the numbers and the statistics and tell you a story a about a person affected by something. I found that to be the most dramatic way to bring issues home to people so they understand. How many stories do we have in this room . Thousands. What you need to do is make sure that your member of congress or some trusted staffer hears those stories and understands what it means to a family what they have been through. When we debated bamobamacare and i stood on the street in front of my office with Tea Party People raging away they u finally said stop telling stories because i had them. Every time they were going to dismiss this as big government, i said let me tell you who couldnt get insurance in rochester. The point im getting to is no matter what the issue and this one especially because how poignant it is the story of medical research has so many different chapters. Make sure that member of congress understands them. I worked for years on the dreamers trying to help those undocumented kids brought to the United States who grew up here. It was partisan but i can recall sitting down trying to work out an agreement on something and she turned to her staffer and said will that help maria if we do it this way. It was a story she heard and remembered and brought to the negotiating table. So never stop telling the stories. Youre a member of the bipartisan. Task force on alzheimers disease. How many members are there . I can tell you i dont know the exact number but its in access of 40. When we had the budget resolution on the floor and i took all the medical research amendments and said lets put it in one amendment, susan went along with it. She had the amz alzheimers amendment and we had 42 or 43 who cosponsored amendments when it came to medical research. Now were all together democrats and republicans. Thats the way this works. And thats the way you build the coalition to the capacity. What is structurally going on . When you look at disease, alzheimers has the largest footprint and the costs are the highest, as i understand, they were among the highest. But the level of Research Dollars that the federal government spends is really a pathetic third or less of what you see going into similar rates of things. Im just interested structurally what do you think is happening in the alzheimers field thats made it difficult to step those numbers up. Thats a good question. How do you pick your Research Issues and Research Projects . And were near a cure, its a deadly disease, it affects children, things like that. And by and large it sounds like all of the above when you get down to it. I dont know. I dont know how to measure. Alzheimers is one of the medical diseases that they are going after in this new partnership between far mapharma and nih. This research may turn out to be more productive than a lot of other things. I wouldnt dismiss it by dollar amount. When i talk about the advanced source being so important to developing a that, who would have guessed that was Biomedical Research when we were developing it 30 years ago but it is. So there are many things that come into the whole quest to find the answer. When you think you talk about conservatives and i would imagine that would be very compelling. My family is from oklahoma and kansas. You went in there and had that discussion and there would be support. Who is the opposition that needs to be taken down . The opposition is not specific. Let me give you an example. My bill, 5 real growth over a tenyear period of time costs 150 billion. Its likely well spend in the neighborhood of 20 trillion on our federal budgets during that period. Big sum of money. 20 trillion gets smaller when you put it in comparison. I started thinking about how are we going to pay for it. Well for the longest time, i have had this thing against tobacco. I knew that. The fact that you dont face smoking on airplanes is a bill i passed in. The house. Round of applause. So i said lets get real. 1 a pack goes to medical research. I went to a conservative republican senator who i dont want to give it away. His religious preference hates tobacco. So i said medical research, 5 im with you. 1 from tobacco, no way, no taxes. Is that a people signed this pledge. Even on tobacco. I said but your state and other states are doing this already. Republicanled legislatures and governors. So it isnt as if people are opposed to science and progress, they sign themselves up for restrictions on their power as a senator in congress to appeal to certain constituencies. Im never going to sign those pledges. I think you need to have the flexibility to make the right decision for the future. Do you think theres a tension from your perspective as we have been talking about research, its also about liveing with this, caretakers im interested in what the Affordable Care act and the social contract as you feel it between our government and Civil Society and those living with this disease. We talked about research, which may not help many of those with this. Does that come up in discussion . Im going to tell you a story. Each of this comes to this it with our life experience. If youve ever been a new father of a sick child and didnt have Health Insurance, youll never forget it as long as you live. I was one. I was a student at georgetown law just a few blocks from here. Brand new wife and bay u by and no Health Insurance. My daughter had a problem. I said i leave the law school classes, pick up my wife and baby and head over to childrens and sit in the room with people who had no Health Insurance and wait to see who walked through the door. I had a number and was hoping whoever came through the door was a competent medical professional that could save my daughters life. Youll never forget that as long as you live. Thats why Health Insurance and that peace of mind is a basic right we should establish in america. It shouldnt be a question of whether youre lucky or rich. This ought to be who we are as a nation. So we get into this conversation about the role of government, thats where i come from. It comes from a life experience. Affordable care act, most important domestic vote i ever cast. 16 million americans now have access to Health Insurance. The number of uninsured is down by 30 . The rate of growth in Health Care Costs is still at an incline, but its flattening just enough to get 1 more years of to the system. This is working. There are 16 million fathers not sitting in those rooms without Health Insurance praying that the right doctor walks through the door. I want to go to the audience and ask you one unfair question. If you were in the seat that president obama has, how would you deal with this political environment differently than he has . What would you do that hes not . What needles would you move that hes not . How would you deal with that task of making the nation healthier . He will be remembered for the Affordable Care act. We have soldiered on through some impossible challenges. How about the roll out and all the things we went through there. I believe this is going to be number one or two in terms of his legacy. We still have a year and a half to go. How could we have done it differently. I really encouraged him to take the act and make it part of his president ial lat form and budget. He hasnt quite done that, but he is moving in more and more research. Taylor make what individuals need. He is a great communicator, a great messenger and i would hope that he would spend more time on this medical research issue. Interesting, good answer. Wait who is it . Senator collins, come on in come join our living room here. [ applause ] thank you for joining us. Were going to get rid of him soon. He said such nice things about you. Lets take a couple questions for senator durbin. Do we have a microphone . How are you . Were going to have fun, i promise. Im on both sides of help inging the Alzheimers Association raise money through my national sorority, but. Im also a caregiver to my father who is 88 and has alzheimers. My challenge is we are raising money and i think its wonderful for research because i dont want any other family to go through what were going through with my father. But at the same time, i want to be able that my father lives a life of dignity because up until this point he was a very active gentleman, very happy, very charismatic. Where does the money come from and how do we get the different Nursing Homes and care facilities and inhome care to meet the requirements to continue to treat people with dignity because i feel that as we have been talking to some of the other caregiver. S before that thats one of the things. Theres no standard. Its a high turnover rate. Ive been fortunate and have found an amazing place for my father that i hope others can find, but then i hear Horror Stories about what is out there. When you talked about the Affordable Care act and health care and how we deserve it i think people who have served in the war and supported the family, he still has a level of care. Were also going to discuss this with senator collins because shes done so much in this area. Im going to hand it off to her because she can answer it better. Shes introduced a piece of legislation that gets to the heart of your question. Thank you, dick. First, let me thank you for hosting this forum and also say that theres no better ed a voadvocate in the United States senate than dick durbin for Biomedical Research and its been a great pleasure to work with you, dick, on this issue that both of us care so much about. Just a week ago senator baldwin and i introduced a National Caregivers act and the reason that we did so is exactly to answer some of the concerns that youve just raised. We are spending 225 billion on caring for people with alzheimers. The majority of that is uncompensated care a that exhausted Family Members are given. And we dont have a strategy for trying to ensure that caregivers have the support that they need. Whether its respite Care Home Health care, whether its support groups and thats what our bill is aimed at. Its modelled on the National Alzheimers Plan act which i authored with former senator evan, and that has z produced a National Strategy for alzheimers thats brought together all the federal agencies and its most important recommendation has to do with the appropriate level of funding for Biomedical Research. Senator, i commend your legislation to bring more money to federal research and there will be a breakthrough in the next few years. My question is you were asking how to pay for it. Why is it when the government develops these kinds of basic Research Things that the Drug Companies to pay little in terms of license fees and they give no break to medicare and provided to taxpayer in the first place. Why cant congress do something about that . Theres no reason why pharma shouldnt pay more. Its modest in terms of real dollars. We hope even that investment will lead to some breakthrough on alzheimers. But i think its not unreasonable and pharma is large, its important, but its revenues and resources suggest that it can be part of the solution here when it comes to medical research. Usually pharma will benefit first. They will develop these new products and when i read this piece i sent a copy out to collins who said it never mentions nih once in the entire article. Did you have anything to do with anything thats going on with biojen. The memo with ten elements of what basic research led to these linkage there. I think engaging farmpharma and funding some of this research. We had a presession this morning with the person who raised 217 million for this first Round Company working on research. What interested me about the amount of money, onethird of the entire budget of the 660 million they put in. When you talk to her about this funding gap between those in the lap to develop research and getting to market, those that invest earlier wiped out in the way equity is dill luted. Theres a structural bridge not being met. So to just say that pharma should do that doesnt. Necessarily figure out the incentive problem. I view this question noz not just Biomedical Research, but related research to be the kind of commitment America Nee