Citizens' opinions and experiences related to costs and reimbursements for medications in times of retrenchment: cross-sectional population surveys in 2015 and 2017.

Despite the protective policies in place, individuals with chronic illness were disproportionately burdened by costs of medications already before the reforms. Among individuals with diabetes, financial difficulties were even more prevalent in 2017 than in 2015, which is likely attributed to the particularly high co-payment increases targeted to type 2 diabetes medicines. Perceived fairness of the processes and outcomes of policies and regulations is a key dimension of trust in public policy. Thus, increasing scepticism implies that retrenchment may also have implications in terms of public legitimacy.