A bitter pill for female students

Condoms, similar to those pictured above, are available free from Penn. Other birth control methods are rising in price, however.

One daily routine for many college women has recently become much more expensive.

Across college campuses, women have been witnessing rising birth control costs as many drug companies are no longer offering universities discounts due to government legislation.

The Deficit Reduction Act, signed by President Bush last year, limits the types of organizations that can receive discounted bulk medications and changes a Medicaid rebate law to diminish the incentives for drug companies to provide discounts for university students.

While at Penn the impact was felt in January, when the Student Health Service's monthly price of birth control pills rose $7 and the monthly price of the NuvaRing increased to $35, many campuses are only feeling the impact now. Many schools, according to The Wall Street Journal, "stocked up on several months' worth of supply" of birth control when the legislation took effect in order to keep prices down. Now, as these supplies diminish, sdschools are raising prices to compensate for future losses.

According to the American College Health Association, 40 percent of sexually active college women use a form of prescription birth control and two-thirds of college students reported having had at least one sexual partner during the 2005-06 school year.

And while Penn's Office of Health Education offers free condoms to students, other forms of birth control are no longer available on campus at all.

Starting this year, SHS will no longer be supplying Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo as a birth-control prescription option.

And some of these changes are causing concern among various health care professionals.

Lee Shulman, board chairman of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, told the Journal that these changes will most likely cause college women to switch to cheaper, generic brands and that this switch can have potentially detrimental side effects.

He notes it is unwise to change birth control routines unless "there is an absolute medical necessity to do so," as uncertainty about a new routine could lead to unplanned pregnancies.

Comments (1)

This shouldn't be a problem for Penn kids; what with all of the high priced new housing being developed across campus there have apparently been multiple market surveys performed to establish that Penn kids have large amounts of disposable income available to underwrite their lifestyle. Of course ladies, there are several other tried and true options regarding your sexual operating expenses: 1) Establish a CPI pass through program to the partners you are servicing; don't worry gentlemen never talk. 2) Abstain from what you can not afford. Of course a few bucks more per month for birth control is less expensive and much less emotionally trying than an abortion, an arranged adoption, or interrupting your college career to bear and raise a child. And remember ladies, you will most likely embark on such a career path without your partner's emotional and financial support. You know how cheap guys can be. Life is full of difficult decisions, however managing your sex life should be one of the easiest.

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