An Affordable Pill

Women in college shouldn’t have to make the choice between paying for birth control and paying for textbooks. This may well become the case, however, as many of the three million female college students nationwide who regularly use oral contraceptives have seen their pills’ cost skyrocket. For cash-strapped students, this price increase amounts to a serious burden, one that makes it substantially more difficult for them to afford necessary contraception and is therefore a hindrance to practicing safe sex.

The rise in prices is the result of a national law that recently went into effect: the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act. The measure removes incentives for pharmaceutical companies to provide contraception to university health centers and low-income community clinics at sharply discounted prices. Removing this incentive caused drug companies to begin selling the contraceptives at open market prices, and forced university and community health centers to either pass the increase in cost on to patients or stop carrying prescription contraception altogether. This is the case at our own University Health Services-affiliated pharmacy—though most students were switched to cheaper generic forms of oral contraception, those students on drugs with no generic equivalent have to pay much more. The consequences of instituting this new law have been immediately noticeable—clinics are already citing plummeting sales, and many students have reported switching to alternative birth control methods, like the morning-after pill, that are less ideal.

Although some lawmakers have recognized this new provision as an unintentional and undesirable consequence of legislation tacked onto the omnibus 2005 act, some there are some who actually support the price hike. They argue that the original system encouraged women to use more expensive brand-name drugs at government expensive when cheaper generics would be just as effective. Moreover, some dismiss concerns over the price increase as insignificant, claiming that a mere 40 or 50 dollar price jump for monthly oral contraception does not constitute a significant portion of a college student’s budget. Both of these arguments, however, ignore the crucial fact that the health of women is at stake; many women, both college students and otherwise, could only afford to buy birth control because it was offered at local health centers at those steeply discounted prices. Furthermore, not all oral contraceptives are equivalent—sometimes the drug that works best for an individual has no generic equivalent.

Fortunately, some Democrats in Congress are pushing for a new bill that will repeal the provision and bring back the original discounts. This bill should be passed as soon possible, especially since pharmaceutical companies, not taxpayers, would incur the costs of providing the discounted contraception. In the meantime, university health centers that have the funds should subsidize the costs of these contraceptives for their students, ensuring that all who need birth control can continue to afford it.