For students like Emporia State University Senior Amber Ashley, the rise in birth control costs at college campuses is forcing them to choose — buy birth-control medication or buy groceries?
Because of a law related to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, the cost of birth control for college health centers rose steeply last year. Many college campuses are just now seeing the financial impact of the new law.
Mary McDaniel, assistant director for Health Services at ESU’s Student Health Services, said drug companies can no longer offer prescriptions at nominal pricing or at a cheaper cost than what they give to Medicare or Medicaid patients.
If drug companies choose to offer that pricing, they would have to pay the government the difference in costs. As a result of the new law, student health centers are the ones taking the hit.
“I think it was a case of making law without really knowing who and how it was going to effect,” McDaniel said.McDaniel said it came as a surprise when she went to order birth control pills near last year’s Christmas break.
“I found the price was like 10 times the price I paid the last time,” she said.
To hold the cost down for students in the spring semester, Student Health Services was able to stockpile birth control products from one company. The products were all brand name forms of birth control.
This semester, there is no other alternative but to raise prices on birth control.
Student Health Services has started offering generic pills, but the cost still is going to be slightly more. Generics were in the $12 to $15 range and now are going up to the $15 to $20 range.
And those prices are just for the birth control pill. Products such as NuvaRing, a once-a-month contraceptive, don’t have a generic alternative. A NuvaRing prescription has gone up to $40 or $45 from $15.
McDaniel said the price hike puts students in the position of having to make a choice between a prescription that doesn’t work as well for them or somehow eating the cost.
Ashley said it’s not just birth control that went up this year. It’s also the hit from the tuition increase.
“Tripling the price of my birth control, that is an extra $50 a month,” Ashley said. “That’s pretty hard to come up with. You don’t want to use your financial aid to pay for that.”
Ashley is a nursing student who works two jobs and goes to school. She said she has decided to get her prescription at Wal-Mart, but still it’s a hassle.
“It’s just a pain,” she said. “I make an extra trip there every month.”
Ashley said women use birth control for different reasons.
“A lot of girls are on birth control for ovarian pain and other symptoms,” she said. “It just makes it completely terrible to be able to accommodate everything to afford birth control.”
Ashley said many of her friends are having to go to alternative sources for birth control such as getting it at Wal-Mart, meaning women lose the convenience of getting the products on campus.
“It’s a complete strain,” she added. “Fifty dollars is not a whole lot to a lot of people, but when you’re in college and you’re strapped anyway, it’s tough.”
McDaniel said the American College Health Association has been trying to bring the issue to Congress’ attention. But a ruling this summer means that colleges would not been added as an exception to the new law.
Ashley said she has written letters to senators and signed petitions trying to get something done.
“But to no avail,” she said. “It’s birth control or groceries is what is comes down to for a lot of people.”