We’re all familiar with the necessary evils of today’s society: paying taxes, going to the dentist and sitting in rush-hour traffic. Now, there’s another one to add to the list — high deductible health plans (HDHPs). They’re on the rise due to increasingly unmanageable health care costs caused by factors such as increased carrier and hospital consolidation, unregulated pharmaceutical prices, and a lack of financial awareness among medical providers.

In response, prudent employers who want to continue providing health benefits but can’t keep up with the costs are turning to HDHPs to share the financial burden with employees and encouraging those employees to become more disciplined shoppers. This is predictably being met with resistance.

But there’s a more urgent matter at hand: until we find a way to flip the health-care system on its head, we’re anticipating a future where networks get narrower and significantly limit options and deductibles rise to catastrophic heights.