Rising health costs will force more educated patients

Rising drug costs have frequently been in the news recently, and USA Today published another article in that vein. New drugs are expected to come on the market. While many of the new drugs will be covered by insurance, there is concern that the extremely high price tags will still place them out of reach of many patients (given that patients will still need to pay a portion of the costs). It appears that even treatments that have been around for a while (such as insulin) have risen in price recently.

As patients become more and more exposed the increasing costs of health care, I expect that many will start to learn what is and is not covered by their health plans and may start to make different selections when they choose a plan. Beyond that, however, I would also expect that patients start to question the cost-effectiveness of certain treatments or tests (as well as better understanding their side effects).