Until a recent visit to Dick’s House to refill my birth control prescription, I had not heard of the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act. Neither had the Dick’s House pharmacist. All they knew there was that students at Dartmouth and colleges across the country no longer get federally subsidized birth control which gave students the option of purchasing generic birth control pills for only $5 a month. While birth control is now free for students with the Dartmouth Student Group Health Plan, the rest of us, along with college students all across the country, have to put the prescription through our insurance, which in almost every case results in a dramatic price increase.

Since I couldn’t get a straight answer out of a single person at Dick’s House or on campus about why the birth control prices changed, I decided to investigate. A quick look online revealed the culprit: the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which has just come into effect this year. It’s basically a Medicaid reform bill—according to the White House’s “Fact Sheet: President Bush Signs the Deficit Reduction Act,” the main point of the bill is to reduce growth in mandatory spending programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security “while ensuring that Americans who rely on these programs continue to get needed care.” Of course the main point of the “Fact” Sheet is to spin the nature of the bill beyond its already Orwellian name.

The fact that birth control prices have been so drastically increased means that many of us can no longer afford this care. Though the bill also instated positive things such as allotting “$1 billion in additional mandatory spending for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to help low-income Americans pay heating bills; $2 billion in new funding to cover health care costs for Hurricane Katrina victims; and more than $1 billion in new funding for low-income disabled children,” you would be hard pressed to find a bill that gets passed that doesn’t have at least one good aspect to it. Too many bills get passed that contain really fucked up parts too. For instance, this same bill also included “new grants to support healthy marriages and responsible fatherhood.” Where does the administration come off dropping weighty terms like “healthy marriage?” Who decided that being married is necessary to have a loving relationship or to be responsible parents?

The White House “Fact” Sheet on the bill has the nerve to state that “The President Is Committed To Finding Additional Ways To Make Medicare And Medicaid More Efficient.” If by make more efficient, they mean conspiring to impregnate college-aged women across the country, then this statement is absolutely correct. According to an article published on msnbc.com on March 23, “Prices for oral contraceptives, or birth control pills, are doubling and tripling at student health centers, the result of a complex change in the Medicaid rebate law that essentially ends an incentive for drug companies to provide deep discounts to colleges.” (The article is titled “Birth control prices soar on campuses: Companies end discounts after complex change to Medicaid rebate law.”)

Before the Deficit Reduction Act went into effect, drug companies sold certain prescription drugs at large discounts to colleges and other health care providers for a multitude of reasons. Before the Act, the drug companies didn’t have to calculate the discounts into the rebates they paid to states to participate in Medicaid. However, now the drug companies have to pay more to the states to participate in Medicaid if they continue to sell drugs to colleges at a discount, thus reducing their incentive to sell discounted drugs (including birth control) to colleges—which means that in the end, we’re the ones who suffer.

This change came unexpectedly, and not many people understand why Dartmouth (and other colleges) stopped offering affordable birth control. According to the MSNBC article, “Many students could shift to generics but experts said they might still pay twice the previous rate.” Even though students like me have medical insurance, the price of birth control still rises under this new bill. In addition, the birth control prescription now goes through our insurance—which may stop many students who don’t have the most open-minded parents from using it at all. The increased price and exposure of the prescription increases the risk that many women will stop using birth control pills, and though condoms are highly effective when used consistently and correctly, the way many college students use them is neither consistent nor correct, due to the fact that they are generally used in situations that also involve alcohol. This just increases the need for birth control as a secondary, and sometimes even a primary method of pregnancy prevention—so the fact that its use is extremely likely to drop as a direct result of this bill is a dangerous development for women everywhere.

According to the American College Health Association’s (ACHA) Spring 2006 National College Health Assessment, 38% of sexually active college students rely on birth control pills as a method of pregnancy prevention. Essentially, the Bush administration is screwing college-aged women everywhere who are just trying to be responsible and practice safe sex. Maybe they just don’t care, since they have their own (completely idiotic and irrational) agenda about the immorality of pre-marital sex. However, increasing birth control prices will just make women less likely to use birth control, or force us to spend even more hard-earned money on it, not less likely to have sex. The MSNBC article even states that, “The ACHA contends the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should have added college health centers to the exemptions list and has supported a proposed rule change that would do so. A spokesman for the agency said it is reviewing that proposal.” Hopefully women (and men) everywhere will take an active approach and contact their congressional representatives to correct this gross overlook.

The White House goes as far as to claim that the Deficit Reduction Act “restrains Federal spending and leaves more money in the hands of the American people.” It’s reassuring that we live in a country where the government prides itself on reducing spending on programs that prevent unwanted pregnancies, but increases spending on a pointless war.