Tipping the scale: Contraceptive costs on the rise

During the past few months, some female UW students have been noticing a peculiar spike in their already massive monthly bills.

Aside from the obvious expenditures such as housing, tuition and textbooks, there is clothing, food, toiletries and — birth control?

That’s right: Female students on campus have been hit with an extreme increase in the cost of contraceptives this academic year. When Congress passed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which altered the Medicaid-related rebates paid to states, an unexpected side effect occurred.

The act inadvertently raised the price of birth control nearly five times as much on average.

“The laws related to the act disallowed manufacturers to offer reduced pricing to Universities and Planned Parenthood,” said John Medina, director of the Rubenstein Pharmacy at Hall Health. “The laws took effect on Dec. 31 2006, but students didn’t really find out until later that this was going to affect them.”

Medina said Hall Health ordered as much birth control as the medical companies would allow at a reduced rate, which coasted the pharmacy through early summer of 2007. Now students are starting to catch on to the increase in price.

Many are chasing costs for the cheaper brands and experiencing a variety of changeover side effects, which are standard when switching birth control brands.

“Now it’s changed from being a choice of which birth control is right for you to being a decision of which brand is the cheapest,” sophomore Annie Collins said. “This puts women at a financial and situational disadvantage for taking control of their own reproductive health and well-being.”

While birth control should arguably be the responsibility of both the male and female in a relationship, women have traditionally been held accountable for their own reproductive security.

“We’re doing the best we can to adjust to the situation,” Medina said. “As the patents run out on the name brands, which typically cost around $50, we look for the generic equivalent to offer students, at about half the cost.”

The sales of Plan B, which became an over-the-counter drug for those over the age of 18 in 2007, have not significantly increased. Plan B is an FDA-approved emergency contraceptive method that can be taken up to three days after unprotected sexual intercourse to decrease a woman’s chance of getting pregnant.

“We’ve seen a slight increase in the alternative forms of birth control, but haven’t noticed a big change in demand for Plan B,” Medina said.

The American Health Care Association, a health advocacy organization, has been working to get the law repealed. While the group is steadily making Congress aware of this adverse side effect of the Deficit Reduction Act, the legislative wheels are moving slowly.