Sequelae from Financial Toxicity of Biologics and JAK Inhibitors in the United States: Health Insurance Companies May Eliminate Dermatology from the List of Specialists in their Physician Panels

Abstract

The cost of health care is escalating at alarming rates in the United States. There are real issues regarding affordability and access under the system today. US health care is unsustainable in its present course, and changes are imminent. Insurance companies are forced to consider various methods to rein in these costs. It seems evident that some of these innovative measures might restrict access to non-life-threatening diseases. With these concerns, I wish to sound the alarm to my specialty of dermatology as we, and specifically the prescriptions we write, might just be pricing ourselves out of future affordable health insurance plans. I pray I am merely following the famous finger-wagger Thomas Malthus, who said that the world population would grow so large that we won't be able to feed ourselves anymore.