They cut back on their medical costs by visitingdoctors less and taking their prescription medicine less frequently after the co-payment increase, due in part to their fixed incomes.
In a detailed 2007 analysis of over 21, 000 hypertensive patients already visitingdoctors for hypertension in five Western European nations (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) and the United States, the best rate of success was in the United States (63 percent), compared with 31 percent to 46 percent of patients in the European countries.