Federal law starting to trigger price woes for students on birth control
Abigail Rose Anson
Issue date: 8/28/07 Section: People
- Page 1 of 2 next >
|
But what happens when the price of a necessity goes up? Do people still buy it? This is a situation many women at UNO are presently facing.
A change in federal law has caused the prices of birth control for college students to increase drastically. According to a statement by American College Health Association, "The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 adversely affected the discounted pricing of oral contraceptives formerly extended to student health centers by pharmaceutical manufacturers."
In effect, the law made it too expensive for birth control companies to offer discounted prices to colleges because the manufacturers were forced to offer discounted prices to all federal programs.
When university pharmacies found out about the increased prices, they stockpiled on birth control to delay the price increase for their students. Although the law has been in place since Jan. 1, the prices have only recently begun to rise because of the depletion of the stockpiles.
When getting birth control from the UNO health center, women are often referred to the UNL pharmacy because of lower prices.
A pack of birth control pills, such as Ortho Tri- Cyclen Lo, from the UNL pharmacy prior to the change in law was $10. A student will now pay $40 for the same medication. This increase in price has caused many students to rethink their birth control methods.
"We are college students - we don't have 50 extra dollars a month to be spending on birth control," said junior Betsy Hills. "I think this is going to cause a lot of UNO students and women in general to rethink their birth control methods."
Be the first to comment on this story