WASHINGTON – College students are being faced with substantially increased prices for birth control pills at student health centers due to a 2005 deficit-reduction bill.
Targeted at decreasing Medicaid funding, the bill did away with rebate laws that enable birth control drugs to be sold at a deep discount to certain health care providers, including colleges. Only now running out of bulk quantities of birth control pills purchased before the changes took effect in January, colleges have begun charging as much as double and triple the original price.
According to the Associated Press,The American College Health Association (ACHA) is supporting a proposal to add college health centers to a list of providers exempt from the bill. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is currently reviewing the proposal.
According to the ACHA, approximately 39 percent of undergraduate women use oral contraceptives.
