OBJECTIVES: Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. The health and economic costs associated with the disease are enormous. We forecast and quantify this burden until year 2050 and evaluate the potential impacts of delayed onset of Alzheimer’s disease. METHODS: We use a dynamic micro-simulation model to predict health status (Alzheimer’s disease as one of the measures) and economic situations of Americans 50 years and older, from year 2004 to 2050. To estimate the burden of Alzheimer’s disease, we estimate a scenario in which there is no incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and compare outcomes with projections of the status-quo over future years. To evaluate the impacts of potential treatments to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, we run three scenarios in which there is 2-year, 4-year, or 6-year delay of onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The main data sources are the Health and Retirement Study and the Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study. The health outcome measured is Quality-Adjusted Life Years. Economic outcomes include earnings and tax revenues, health care costs and long-term care costs (total, Medicare, Medicaid), opportunity costs for unpaid caregivers, and Social Security outlays. RESULTS: The population with Alzheimer’s disease will increase by more than 150 percent in year 2050. Relative to the status-quo, eliminating Alzheimer’s disease would raise tax revenues, and reduce cumulative Medicare costs. Alternatively, cumulative Medicaid spending and Social Security benefits would increase, outweighing the savings in Medicare spending and raised tax revenues. We will also present the gains in QALYs and savings in unpaid care-giving under different intervention scenarios. CONCLUSIONS: Preventing Alzheimer’s disease will increase life expectancy and quality of life. However, these health benefits will increase government spending as increased longevity results in longer outlays of annuities and health spending.