Birth Control Pricing Op-Ed: WI Business & Professional Women (BPW)

As a member of Wisconsin’s Business and Professional Women (BPW), I am part of an organization whose goal is to achieve equity for all women in the workplace through advocacy, education and information. BPW members are working women seeking to advance their career goals, earn higher salaries, build stronger businesses, achieve pay equity and equal opportunities, and establish rewarding careers.

Our organization values opportunities for young women to obtain college educations and to further succeed as working women. And on behalf of Wisconsin’s BPW Chapter, I am writing to express my concern that college women are now facing skyrocketing birth control costs at college and area health clinics in Wisconsin and nationwide, which could cause a rise in unintended pregnancies. Unintended pregnancy is a major cause of young women dropping out of college.

For the last twenty years or so, community and college-based health clinics were able to buy birth control at preferred level prices, and pass those savings onto college and low- income women. Because of a unintended oversight in a new law called the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), many college and community health clinics are now forced to buy birth control at market prices.

As a result of this policy change, college students and many low-income women have seen their birth control prices skyrocket from $5 or $10 up to $40 or $50. Some colleges can no longer afford to carry birth control at all. Additionally, in an effort to preserve low and no-cost birth control for their low-income patients, some community health providers are cutting back on staff, hours of operation, and services. The consequences of the DRA’s unintended impact on college clinics and safety-net health providers are significant and are likely to result in an increase in unintended pregnancies among college students and low-income women.

This is why members of the Wisconsin Business and Professional Women are speaking out.

Approximately three million college women in America are taking birth control pills. According to the American College Health Association, 39 percent of undergraduate women are using them. The availability of low-cost birth control on campuses has to be a factor in the falling teen pregnancy rate. This year it hit a 65-year low of 40.4 births per 1,000 women, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. We must not lose ground now.

Congress has known about this problem all year, and too many lawmakers have dragged their feet. So far, four of Wisconsin’s eight congressional leaders have indicated their support for a fix to this drastic problem, by supporting the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act, legislation that will restore affordable birth control right now. Congressman Obey has long been a supporter for women’s access to prevention-based health care, but has not yet indicated his support for this critical fix to restore access to affordable birth control.

We appeal to Congressman Obey’s long history and support of health care access for working women and our families. College students and low-income women should not be priced out of family planning, which for many is the key to self-sufficiency and success. Please support the fix to restore affordable birth control for women in Wisconsin and across the nation.