Even though students are taught as early as middle school about the importance of contraceptives, female students at colleges across the country are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain effective methods of birth control. Passed in January 2006, the federal Deficit Reduction Act has made it tougher for drug manufacturers to sell their products at discount rates to specific buyers – including universities. Several health service departments at universities have had to raise the prices of brand-name birth control up to $55 a pack – no small matter considering some packs used to cost as little as $5. Because of this unintended consequence the Deficit Reduction Act, female students’ finances and health rights are now in danger.
The surge in brand-name prescription prices is the result of the Deficit Reduction Act revoking pharmaceutical companies’ ability to offer reduced rates on their drugs to student health services unless they offer the same incentive to Medicaid providers. This legislative move, many doctors fear, will cause women to turn away from prescription birth control methods that have proven to be 99.7 percent effective against pregnancy in favor of less reliable, less expensive methods.
Such a move would make young women more susceptible to unexpected pregnancies, which presumably would interfere with their education and be a further strain on their finances, at the very least. Affordable birth control stops these problems before they start, whereas unaffordable birth control threatens to exacerbate those and other problems like unplanned pregnancy, abortion and poverty.
Ironically, the legislative act responsible for the increase in birth control pricing, which is an attempt to reduce the deficit, turns out to cost more money in the long run. The medical expenditure due to unplanned pregnancies and abortion exceed the cost of providing affordable birth control in the beginning. According to recent research from Princeton University’s Office of Population Research, America spends $5 billion a year in medical expenses stemming from unplanned pregnancies, yet it saves $19 billion a year from birth control methods. Further, every dollar the government spends on safe sex services saves $4 in social services meant to support unplanned pregnancy in the first year alone. Affordable birth control is not only cost effective for the individual but also for the country at large.
Adding to the irony, this increase in birth control prices seems to be a step backward for health care. With the ideas of expanded health insurance and universal health care gaining ground with the American public and certain presidential candidates boasting their potential in the future, it seems counterintuitive for the legislature to pass a measure that hikes prescription costs. Instead of making health care more accessible, lawmakers are turning it into a luxury available to those who can foot the bill.
Contraceptives comprise a vital part of fundamental health care and everyone should be able to exercise their reproductive rights in an affordable and effective way. One of the steps to ensure this goal must be for legislators to fix this flaw in the Deficit Reduction Act. Students’ reproductive rights and health care should not suffer from an unforeseen legal technicalities.