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it's appalling that the price of birth control impacts a young woman's decision to buy them or not.
The High Price of Campus Birth Control
Birth control pillsPaula Tran, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, relies on her school's health center for affordable birth control pills. Even though she doesn't have insurance, she bought a year supply from the clinic for only $7 per pack last fall. But when she goes back for more this September, she'll be hit with a bill five times that amount, something she says will definitely affect her spending. "It will cut into the kinds of notebooks I buy to the kind of groceries I get to the cable package that I order," she says.
For decades college campus health centers have been a resource for budget-conscious female students seeking birth control. Because of agreements with pharmaceutical companies, most campus clinics were able to distribute brand name prescription contraceptives, from pills to the patch to a monthly vaginal device like NuvaRing, for no more than a couple of bucks.
That all ended earlier this year. Health experts say the price bump for college students was inadvertent — a byproduct of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, a federal law that went into effect in January. The law alters how drug makers calculate Medicaid-related rebates paid to states, but it ultimately made it expensive for companies to offer schools such deep discounts on birth control. As a result, brand name prescription prices for campus clinics rose from about the $3 to $10 range per month to the $30 to $50 range. Organon, the maker of Cyclessa and Desogen birth control pills and the NuvaRing, says the company is not happy about having to increase prices for colleges. But Nick Hart, Organon's executive director of contraception, says they were forced to make "a business decision" after the law went into effect.
You know, it would be best if I could live my life like Elvis Costello: "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused." Unfortunately, I just can't pull it off. America's hypocrisy towards sexual health, especially that of women, is legendary, and I shouldn't continue to be appalled, and yet I still am. Another thing you have to remember when reading the above article that kind of brings the entire issue into even clearer focus is that many health insurance companies won't pay for contraception -- but Viagra is definitely on the roster. What's that say about the relative values of the health of the cock and the cunt in the great bureaucracy that is our modern health system?
Alternet also has an interesting article that shows how urgently we value the role of childbearing for women, whether they want to or not: it talks about women who are well into their twenties -- far beyond the age necessary to drink, smoke, join the army, or vote -- are routinely denied tubal ligations simply because the doctors think they're not old enouth.
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after posting this, i remembered that while birth control/tubal ligations are essential to a young woman's overall health they do not prevent STD's...casual sex still requires a barrier method.
i would never discourage anyone from using long term/permanent forms of birth control, but it can't be forgotten that HIV still exists and while highly treatable, it is not curable. i've read that the scary times of HIV=death have passed and that teens now see it as a chronic illness.
safe sex education is so essential.
Hopefully the lobbying done by Planned Parenthood and others will see the Deficit Reduction Act (whose initial wording was the main culprit in causing this problem) amended to reverse this current price situation.
Early in November, bills were introduced in both houses of Congress to change the language in the Act to enable college health centers and other health care providers to pass on discounts they receive for the cost of contraceptives to students.
No one seems to know how long this will take to be finalised but the support appears to be strong for the amendment to be passed.
If men had to take birth control pills to prevent pregnancies, the pills would be free.
