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Students at Washington University and around the country will notice an increase in contraception prices this year as a result of the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) signed in 2005 by President Bush.
The Act aims to cut $39 billion in federal program spending, including student loans and Medicaid. Under the Act, contraceptive prices are linked to Medicaid-related rebates that drug companies pay to the states. Discounted drug prices force those companies to make larger payments, creating the incentive for them to eliminate the discounts.
Dr. Alan Glass of Student Health Services (SHS) at the University says the incentive for companies to offer discounts went away even before the Act, though.
"It was a very common practice as recently as four or five years ago for pharmaceutical companies to deeply discount prices of oral contraceptives," he said. "The logic was that if they could get students using their own brand, they would potentially stay loyal to that brand through their reproductive years. That incentive to deeply discount disappeared before DRA when oral contraception went generic. There wasn't the same incentive for those companies to keep prices low because women could go out and buy generic brands."
Students have traditionally paid about $15 per month for contraception as opposed to the $50 retail price. Now they may pay up to four times as much. In many cases, the price increase is only taking effect now because schools stocked up on contraceptives at the lower price upon learning of the pending increase.
SHS purchased contraceptives in bulk about three-and-a-half years ago in anticipation of the price hike.
"We would use the potential life (expiration date) and estimate the amount we might need," said Glass. "We were able to keep prices low over the course of the last few years but we had to purchase new ones."
The higher prices are worrying health professionals who say higher prices will lead to more unintended pregnancies. Not only will more women stop using contraception daily, but even switching to cheaper brands can pose risks and side effects.
Glass says that SHS does what it can to keep prices low by buying through different marketing groups like the American College Health Association (ACHA) and selling them at no markup.
Also, for the first time last year after much negotiation, SHS was able to offer optional prescription drug benefits through the student health insurance plan. Before that, student coverage did not handle prescription drugs.
Students, however, need to be open to using whichever contraception if appropriate for them and at the lowest price.
Oral contraception and the NuvaRing, a sort of chemical diaphragm, have been affected most by the changes. Students can still get condoms for free through many student and University groups.
The alternative to students paying higher prices is to give up privacy by having their parents add them to their insurance plans, but this puts them in an awkward situation.
About 40 percent of sexually active women say they use pills and other types of birth control, according to a 2006 ACHA survey of more than 23,000 students. The survey also shows that two-thirds of students were sexually active in the past 12 months.
