1 March 2018 - Personalised medicine and treatments for rare diseases – many of which are extraordinarily expensive – are a growing part of the U.S. health care landscape. 

This trend has important ramifications for the out-of-pocket prices (e.g., copays and coinsurance) that insurers require patients to pay.

A growing body of research says that insurers raise out-of-pocket costs in part to avoid sick enrollees. This problem is likely to get worse as personalised medicine becomes more common, more patients get to choose between competing private health plans, and employers shrink the coverage they offer employees in order to reduce their labor costs. Consequently, if we want new medical innovations to be financially viable for the patients who need it most, health insurance markets need to be regulated to eliminate the perverse financial incentives that limit patients’ coverage.

Read Harvard Business Review article