WTHR |IU braces for birth control pill price hike

IU braces for birth control pill price hike

Jennie Runevitch/Eyewitness News

Bloomington - College students are facing sticker shock when it comes to the price of birth control.

Statistics show about 40 percent of undergraduate women take oral contraceptives, but suddenly, they're being forced to pay much more for the pill.

Oral contraceptives make up a quarter of all prescriptions filled at Indiana University's Health Center. Traditionally, college women got deep discounts, but the price of birth control is doubling or even tripling on campus.

"We had a number of prescriptions that were $10, $12, $13. Those have at least doubled and in some instances, with some of the new things like the nuva ring, was $12, now going up to $40," said Dr. Hugh Jessop, Executive Director, IU Health Center.

For students, that's some serious sticker shock.

"I mean, we're college students so it's kind of expensive for us," said Jackie Davis, IU junior.

"Sticker shock is the absolute word for it. You know, when it goes two, two and a half, or three times the amount you were paying just the last time you filled your prescription, that's pretty tough stuff to swallow," said Jessop.

So why the price hike? A new federal mandate took effect in January removing incentive rebates for drug companies on campus. The mandate says if drug companies give discounts to campus pharmacies they also have to give discounts to medicaid and medicare patients, individually, at neighborhood pharmacies.

That didn't make business sense for drug companies, so they decided to wipe out discounts completely.

Some fear the impact will go beyond students' pocketbooks and that high costs could affect their health.

"I think it's ridiculous because I feel a lot of people are going to stop taking them or stop buying them or stop using them and a lot more pregnancies are going to happen," said Davis.

"Personally I wouldn't stop, but I think if people are on a really low budget and don't have a lot of money, they might be forced to stop," said Stacy Peterlin, IU sophomore.

It's a scenario health officials say they don't want to see on campus.

The American College Health Association is lobbying in Washington for a rule change that would give college health centers exemptions and essentially bring back deep discounts for students.