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Birth control prices: hard to swallow |
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Tuesday, 03 April 2007 |
by JAMISON DORAN
News Reporter
Appalachian State University students as well as students at colleges nationwide are suddenly finding themselves dealing with a sharp increase in prices for birth control.
“The law changed as of Jan. 1 of this year and that’s when we started seeing the prices increase,” David J. Neal, a clinical pharmacist at Mary S. Shook Student Health Services, said.
This change is due to an unintended consequence of the Deficit Reduction Act, which was signed into law in 2006.
The act slows the growth in spending for Medicare and Medicaid and would save nearly $40 billion in five years.
However, an oversight in the legislation left the opportunity open for birth control prices to skyrocket on college campuses.
These new regulations do not prohibit birth control manufactures from
selling their products to university health care centers at low prices.
The regulations do prohibit the manufacturer from exempting these sales
from the calculation of their best price, resulting in a financial
disincentive to extend nominal pricing to student health centers.
It used to be that it was to the manufacturers benefit to supply birth
control to college campuses at a low cost, the rationale being that
women would start using the birth control and continue using it even
when they left college, Neal said.
“Universities are caught in the middle, because we still have an obligation to find the lowest price of
birth control possible,” Neal said.
Appalachian, knowing that the price would increase, decided to buy a
significant amount of Ortho Tricyclen-Lo before the price went up so
they would be able to offer it for $5 while a low-cost substitute is
found.
However, women who use alternative forms of birth control such as
NuvaRing and the birth control patch have found them no longer carried
at Appalachian’s pharmacy.
The prices of NuvaRing and the patch skyrocketed, with NuvaRing going
to cost $50. The pharmacy could not, in good conscience, supply those
brands since it wants to keep costs low, Neal said.
These newer methods of birth control do not yet have generic brands,
which means only name brands are available and those tend to cost more.
Neal said students who used either of those methods have had to go back
to oral contraceptives or have to get their prescription elsewhere.
“There have been women who are extremely upset about this, because they
can no longer get a product like NuvaRing here for $5 – now it’s $50 –
and they have to get it at another pharmacy,” Neal said.
The American College Health Association is currently lobbying Congress to try to get the law changed.
One thing that could help is getting all insurance companies to cover birth control, Neal said.
While having insurance companies cover forms of birth control would be
a solution for some, it wouldn’t be for all, as some women are still on
their parent’s insurance and don’t want them finding out they’re
on birth control.
“College women found it easy and convenient when they only had to pay
$5 every month and didn’t have to claim it on their parent’s
insurance,” Neal said.
Sarah C. Morris, a junior political science major, feels that the increase in prices is worrisome.
“If I was at a regular doctor, the birth control would be $25 with
co-pay. I think that since I pay for it, I would be OK if it was $15,
since $25 a month adds up,” she said.
Morris also said she would consider other options if the prices became too high for her to afford.
“Birth control can be very expensive from a regular pharmacy and we are
college students, money is tight as it is. When it comes down to it,
eating or birth control, I am going to be picking eating,” Morris said.
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Fiscally speaking, the taxpayers of the United States have no obligation to subsidize anyone's birth control methods beit at a university or any other facility, so the outrage is a moot point. If you want to play, you gotta pay.