Students who buy contraceptives through the University’s Student Health Center are accustomed to paying $15 per month for them — a discounted price from pharmaceutical companies.
However, college students throughout the nation are suddenly facing rising prices for contraceptives that are doubling or tripling as a result of the Debt Reduction Act of December 2005. The Act eliminated a incentive for drug companies to provide discounts to college student health centers.
The Debt Reduction Act, in place since January, requires drug manufacturers to pay more to participate in Medicaid. To avoid excessive costs, the manufacturers are having to drop the discounts for colleges, according to Marianne White, the pharmacist manager at the Student Health Center.
The prices at the Student Health Center will double or even triple, White said. She said the price increase has been going on for awhile, but it began to affect the University in January.
“The act affected the contracts that we were able to negotiate with our companies, and I think it was unintentional that all student health services got grouped into that act,” White said. “It wouldn’t allow us to buy contraceptives on special pricing, and right now we’re just stuck trying to purchase them from our wholesaler at a higher price.”
White said every year the Student Health Center negotiates contracts with manufacturers to purchase prescription drugs at certain prices. The manufacturer guarantees the University a price for a specific time period.
“As of December, we were getting fewer and fewer contraceptives on contract,” she said. “Everything is more expensive than it used to be.”
Jerry Barker, director and associate vice chancellor of student affairs, said he does not understand why the government did not include college student health centers in the list of exemptions of the act.
“It is amazing how the prices have gone up over the last year and a half or so,” he said. “I don’t understand how in the world our government can help us out by raising prices.”
The Student Health Center maintains some of the contraceptives that it can give at the discounted price of $15, but White said once that stock is gone, the price will increase.
According to White, the price has raised the most for the NuvaRing. Where it used to be $15, is now $35.
“We sell probably 30 [types of] contraceptive pills,” White said. “So [the act is] probably going to have a direct effect on all of it at some point or another.”
Students who have insurance will be able to pay their co-pays, depending on the insurance company, for the contraceptives.
According to White and Barker, the American College Health Association is challenging the act that college health centers should have been added to the exemptions lists for the sharp increase in prices.
“The American College Health Association is working fervently to try and allow us to be able to go back to purchasing off of contracts,” White said. “But there’s nothing that has been done at this point, and they’re fighting the battle up in Washington, and right now we’re just stuck trying to purchase them from our wholesaler at a higher price.”
Barker said the ACHA’s work may succeed.
“They are very favorable to adding college health to the exceptions, which would allow us to buy oral contraceptives at a discount price in the future,” he said. “It does appear that there is light at the end of the tunnel that we may have been able to go back to cheaper pricing.”
White said this will not keep the Student Health Center from purchasing fewer contraceptives from the drug manufacturers, as long as there is a need for them.
As for students, White said she does not know how this rise in cost will affect the frequency of their purchases.
“I’m not going to say they’re going to stop buying pills, because I don’t know that for a fact,” White said. “I know it’s going to be hard just like everything else is because [students] don’t have funds. I know it’s going to cause some budget problems.”
Barker said he also does not think this price change will cause students to stop buying contraceptives.
“I think students are fairly responsible, and if they are trying to avoid pregnancy, they would use protection,” Barker said. “There’s also a lot of girls who use oral contraceptives for other purposes other than birth control, and they probably would not cease using them for other medical reasons.”