Spring Break
Controlling the money
Feana Kotter
Issue date: 3/28/07 Section: Opinion
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Concern over the rising cost of birth control has already been voiced at Indiana University, where, according to a recent CNN.com article, women are paying $22 for a month's supply of oral birth control pills. At Texas A&M the current price is $15, and health center workers there expect that number to triple.
This is possibly the worst way for billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies to impact the lives of college students. The American College Health Association says about 39 percent of female undergraduates use the pill. What will happen if they can no longer afford to do so?
Drug companies are being blatantly selfish in this case. Instead of taking a loss in profits due to the new Medicaid laws, they would rather deal college students another blow to the wallet. These companies make millions of dollars in profit every year by selling water to fish, so to speak. Potentially denying contraceptives to college students who want or need them, all because the cost has increased, could create more than just a monetary problem.
Most research indicates the pill has a higher rate of success at preventing pregnancy than condoms or any other method of birth control. If the price of the pill becomes too much for some women, they may have to turn to another, less effective method, and nine months later life changes forever.
This should be the straw that breaks the camel's back for college students. Pumping up the prices of books and tuition was annoying, but increasing the cost of medication and health care for college students is unfair and wrong.
Why don't these companies raise the prices slightly for everyone? Women who are in the job force can surely afford to pay a couple dollars more, right? The problem may not be fixed until drug companies stop seeing college students as walking dollar signs.
The ACHA says it will attempt to get some sort of provision on the law that will enable college health centers to be exempt from increasing prices, but it's highly unlikely that any action will be taken in the near future.
In the meantime, the cost of being responsible is going up. Students who choose to be sexually active should not have to pay more for that choice, just as those who wish to abstain shouldn't be ridiculed.
Raise the cost of books, fine. We just won't buy them. These drug companies don't have the right to raise the cost of our health without giving us notice. Did anyone on campus receive notification that prices may go up? Did anyone in Indiana or Texas? Probably not.
That's just what these drug companies want: college students lining up for drugs with their mouths shut and their wallets open.
Do any of us truly object to this?
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
R. Johnson
posted 3/28/07 @ 2:07 PM CST
You've got to be kidding. People who are sexually active don't have the RIGHT to control the price of their contraception any more than people who CHOOSE to smoke have the right to cheap cigarettes and people who CHOOSE to drink alcohol have the right to dollar drafts. (Continued…)
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