Due to federal legislation, students at Brown and around the nation can no longer get birth control pills for less than market price, but the number of students getting birth control through University Health Services has remained about the same.
In the past, pharmaceutical companies provided large discounts on sales of birth control pills to universities, allowing colleges to provide birth control to students at low cost without using health insurance from either the school or parents. That birth control was offered in "clinic packs," which could be used for three or four months.
But that changed with the introduction of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which was signed into law in February 2006. The new birth control policy has been in place since this January.
The law was designed to save taxpayers close to $40 billion over the next five years by slowing the rate of growth on mandatory spending for federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid. But a provision in the law meant pharmaceutical companies no longer provided reduced-price birth control to student health centers - Brown's included - according to a Sept. 10 article in the Boston Globe. The legislation has also affected health clinics such as Planned Parenthood.
For a period of time, the change went largely unnoticed because most university pharmacies, including Brown's, stocked up before the legislation went into effect. But since early this year, newspapers around the country have been reporting significant price hikes for birth control.
Under the old system, students could either purchase birth control through their insurance and pay a co-pay on the market price or buy discounted clinic packs without insurance, said Edward Wheeler, director of Health Services.
At the time, for many students, it was actually cheaper and more convenient to purchase the clinic packs. Since clinic packs are no longer available, many students have simply started buying birth control using insurance.
"Most students are okay with charging their insurance," Wheeler said.
Paul Bergeron, director of the Health Services pharmacy, said that a year ago, students could purchase clinic packs for about $14 per month, while the market price for a one-month supply of pills ranges from $28 to $55.
The co-pay for birth control bought using the University's insurance plan ranges from $10 for generic to $25 for brand-name. Some insurance companies cover the entire cost of the prescription.
Despite the price changes, there has been no noticeable decrease in the number of students receiving birth control from Health Services, though initially "we were worried that it actually would decrease our numbers," Wheeler said.
The prices for birth control have risen for the uninsured, but Wheeler said the number of students affected is very small - less than 5 percent of students purchasing birth control from Brown, he estimated.
Students who had been buying birth control through their insurance companies all along have not noticed any price change, since those companies have only been covering market price drugs, Wheeler said.
A more prominent effect of the policy is that students can only purchase a one-month supply of birth control at a time.
"Students just feel that it is an inconvenience to come back every month," Bergeron said.
Naomi Ninneman, a health educator at Health Services, said though Brown hasn't been hit hard by the legislation, nationally it could become a problem for many women.
"Ideally, you don't choose a method based on cost," she said. But, she said, poor women may be forced to do just that.
"It's cheaper to subsidize prevention than deal with unintended pregnancy," Ninneman said. "If this becomes a pattern of not funding prevention, in the long run, it's certainly going to have some negative consequences."
