Consumers are strongly affected by what happens to prices in many markets, such as the market for food, gasoline, health care, or automobiles. Choose a specific market in which the price has recently changed. Discuss possible reasons for the price change as well as consequences for consumers.

Here is my example. Thanks to medical advances, people in the U.S. are living longer, with better quality of life. This does mean that there has been an increase in the demand for health care services; people over the age of 70 typically require more doctor visits and other health care services, so as we have a larger portion of the population in this age group, the demand has become much greater. When demand shifts to the right, the equilibrium price increases, ceteris paribus. We are all hurt by the rising cost of health care, but what can be done? An increase in supply would help to bring prices back down; the number of physicians practicing in the U.S. has been on the rise over the past few decades, but is it rising enough?