Don’t be surprised if, when going to your student health center this year, you find yourself digging deeper and deeper into your pockets to refill your oral contraceptive prescription. As the Associated Press reports, a change in a Medicaid rebate law (amended in a defecit reduction bill) has ended the incentive for drug companies to offer discounted pills to colleges. What does this mean for the average student? A prespcription that is twice, if not thrice as expensive. The cost increase even affects generic brands.
The AP article mentions students and health workers at schools like Indiana University and Kansas State, which a number of working class students who are often supporting themselves, or even their children, while studying. According to Hugh Jessup, executive director of the health center at IU, “It’s a tremendous problem for our students because not every student has a platinum card…Some of our students have two jobs, have children. To increase this by 100 percent or more overnight, which is what happened, is a huge shock to them and to their system.”
Obviously, this does not bode well for reducing unplanned pregnancies at college campuses. Also, as oral contraceptives can be used at times as emergency contraception, the ramifications for victims of sexual assault are also serious. But, I guess it’s what I’ve come to expect from the government’s continued attacks and erosion of Medicaid…
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