Unfortunately, a legislative error has created a crisis for college students and low-income women who need access to birth control.

With the Deficit Reduction Act, Congress changed the rule allowing pharmaceutical companies to offer some providers low cost drugs – inadvertently making it harder for universities and safety net family planning providers to offer their patients affordable birth control. 

Three million undergraduates and over 850,000 low-income women are affected by this problem nationwide.  And that doesn't take into account graduate students or faculty and staff that may purchase their birth control in college health centers. 

Since this law went into effect in January:

• Birth control prices have skyrocketed
• At Mississippi State University, some birth control pill packs have increased in price from $10 to $49 per month. 
• Similar prices increases will soon occur at The University of Southern Mississippi and The University of Mississippi.
• Access to birth control has been reduced as health centers have cut back on staff and hours
• Access to broader reproductive health care is restricted as health centers have cut back on other services like education, prenatal care, and cervical testing and treatment in order to try to continue to provide low-cost birth control to their patients.

We need Congress’ help to fix this problem, and it’s simple to do.   All Congress needs to do is restore the pharmaceutical companies’ ability to offer low cost drugs to university health centers and safety net providers.  It will cost the government nothing and can be done immediately.