It is without doubt that a small percentage of diabetics cite pain or "invasiveness" as why they fail to perform the ADA recommended number of blood tests per day.  But the number one reason is cost.  Test strips average $0.92 each. 5 times a day equates to $4.10. This cost adds up quickly over a few months, and diabetics, like everyone else, begin to "scale back".  They buy a 50-pack to last two weeks, rather than a 100 pack to last three weeks. Eventually, that 50 pack gets stretched to 3 weeks if they feel their blood sugar was under control.  

There needs to be a war on test strip costs and it needs to occur now.

We bought a cans of strips for $13.00 over the counter at Walmart in 1984. According to my tax receipts from 1999 we paid $19.88 that year for 100 strips.