Birth Control Crisis Hits Colleges
New patients flood Planned Parenthood
BELLINGHAM - New federal legislation aims to reinstate affordable birth control for university students and low-income women as early as 2008, after legislation inadvertently sent prices through the roof last year.
Local providers say some women are paying as much as 10 times the usual amount for prescription birth control since the Deficit Reduction Act that went into effect in October 2006. The bill, which was meant to reduce unnecessary federal health-care spending, neglected to define which health-care providers are eligible for deeply discounted drugs, leaving out universities and other so-called safety-net providers across the nation, including Western Washington University.
The ensuing “birth control crisis,” as some providers are calling it, has caused many WWU students to seek providers who weren’t affected by the act - such as Mt. Baker Planned Parenthood - for affordable contraceptives.
Planned Parenthood staff says the influx has overwhelmed the clinic with new patients at a time when Medicaid reimbursement cuts have reduced staff.
The WWU Student Health Center has been forced to increase prices for basic services by about 5 percent as it struggles to offset the cost of maintaining affordable birth control.
“There have been some students who just simply can’t afford it,” said WWU Health Center Director Emily Gibson. “We have had to go to other (generic) brands to make things more affordable.”
U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both D-Wash., have supported the Prevention First Act, the companion to the House’s Prevention Through Affordable Access Act. The bills aim to reinstate safety-net providers’ right to discounted birth control and other prescription drugs.
Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, the WWU center’s most popular brand, cost $3.20 a cycle last year, and was sold for $15, Gibson said. Now it costs $33.31 per cycle, and the center offers it for $40.
We’ve had to cut back our budget as a result,” Gibson said. “We’ve tried to make it up in other areas, like surgical procedures, casts and other medications.”
Birth control sales have dropped slightly since the price jump, Gibson said, though the number of women the center sees for exams has not.
Although Gibson said student pregnancy rates haven’t increased, women may be relying more on emergency contraceptives like Plan B. Prices of those pills weren’t affected because they were not deeply discounted like conventional contraceptives.
Mt. Baker Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Christina Carr said the clinic falls under a definition that kept it from being affected.
“We’ve had an increase in patients, and many students come to us saying they can’t afford it,” Carr said.
WWU Senior Kelly McManus said she goes to Planned Parenthood for birth control.
“Birth control is shockingly expensive (elsewhere),” she said. “I saw it for $30 a month at a pharmacy. A dollar a day is a lot for a college student. You can eat breakfast for a dollar a day.”
Reach Cat Sieh at cat.sieh@bellinghamherald.com
© 2007 The Bellingham Herald
I hope the author already knows that this is just another chip away at people’s rights to control their own bodies.
And by the way, I didn’t know that the “Deficit Reducation” MISNAMED Act even existed. Too bad there’s no control of military spending.
“Deficit Reducation”
How about a dollar a bullet tax on the Pentagram?
Does one need birth control pills if they have sex the way President Clinton does? Oh, never mind, I forgot. He didn’t have sex with that woman.
I have an iguana from a wwu kid, my partner and I got her from an abusing little girl (college student)in B-ham proper. If Wa. state laws only protected pets then…(yeah, like they protect reptiles now) Its taken years to correct the damage to that iguana! Thousands in vet bills and 3 years of unconditional love (while she tries to rip your face off) and she is beginning to turn around finally. Can’t wait for them troops to come home! How ’bout blackwater?
Give them Birth Control! They Need it! Believe me they do! I’m local, I know!
Lets hope the rush to make babies after war starts is well fucking over by now, huh? Stupid Humans! Sheesh! The apple never falls far….
Stupid is right, having an iguana for a pet is pretty stupid. Bet you gave it a name and hope that someday it will start to have verbel cnversations with you. Those particular lizards carry and transmit some nasty diseases.
I see this as another deliberate act on the ‘fringe lunatics’ in Washington’s part (Bush is one of them) to cater to the ‘fringe right wing religious lunatics’ who want no birth control at all in this country. Who want to set women back 100 years and force them back into bearing children. Because it goes against their religious belief’s, everyone in this country is suppose to comply with their religious dogma. They are ignorant enough to believe birth control is a method of abortion. So now they are going to make the price too high like they did cigarettes for the average woman to afford it. The people in this country had better wise up and wake up to what these sick people are trying to do. They are not the harmless individual’s they pretend to be. If they want to believe birth control is abortion that’s all right with me. But, I don’t believe they have the right to force that belief upon me. They are trying to turn us into a country that’s run by religion…a theocracy!