Price of Contraceptive Pill Soars on Campus

Prices for birth control pills on college campuses are doubling and tripling thanks to a complex change in Medicaid rules.

Justin Pope of the Associated Press has done a little digging and found the reason why the price of birth control pills has gone up on college campuses. As he explains:

"The change is the result of a chain reaction started by a 2005 deficit-reduction bill that focused on Medicaid, the main federal health insurance program for the poor. College health officials say they had little idea the bill would affect them.

Before the change, pharmaceutical companies typically sold drugs at deep discounts to a range of health care providers, including colleges. With contraceptives, one motivation was attracting customers who would stay with their products for years.

Another reason the discounts made business sense was that they didn't count against the drug makers in a formula calculating rebates they owed states to participate in Medicaid.

But in its 2005 bill — which went into effect in January — Congress changed that. Now the discounts to colleges mean drug manufacturers have to pay more to participate in Medicaid."

Pope reports that the American College of Health Associations is considering petitioning the federal government to change the rules again so that college campuses can benefit from the discounts again. Might also be a good cause for college-aged women and men who depend on birth control to keep from becoming mothers and fathers too soon.

Source: Birth Control Pices Soar on Campuses, by Justin Pope. Associated Press, March 23, 2007.