Pricey Pill Means High Social Costs

College students have adjusted to the cost of gas, tuition and books increasing - but now birth control? It seems like that was the only affordable necessity left. No good can come from this increase. It is a simple enough task to increase tuition because the worst that can happen is that some people may become angry and more loans will have to be taken out. It isn't like the increased cost of tuition can result in a child. But the increased cost of birth control can.

According to USA Today, due to a deficit reduction bill affecting Medicaid, college students across the state will begin paying double or triple the cost of their contraceptive. As a result, some students may stop taking oral contraceptives and revert to a more general contraceptive. However, general contraceptives, along with other forms of birth control, may not be as safe or as reliable as the pill. The pill is highly effective on its own and doubly effective when paired with an additional form of birth control. Now, it will prove difficult to find a method that is as inexpensive, reliable, and safe as the pill is.

Other forms of birth control are not as safe as the pill and there is less known about them because they are newer. The Depo-Provera shot has already shown significant association with irreversible osteoporosis. Nuvaring, an internal form of birth control, does not appear to have many side effects as of now, but it is considerably new and all if its effects may not be known. Basically, out of all of the forms of birth control, the pill is the safest, simplest, and most common. More mothers will allow their daughters to take an oral contraceptive just as they did when they were in college, as opposed to allowing them to receive a mysterious shot or a surgically implanted device. Additionally, many people may not want to use such complicated methods for birth control.

Through a statistical survey, The American College Health Association found that about 39 percent of undergraduate women use various kinds of oral contraceptives, and not all of those women have medical insurance. Medical insurance will cushion the cost inflation, but everybody will feel the impact of the more expensive pills. With medical insurance, a previously $10 pack of pills will perhaps now be purchased at $13. But for those without medical insurance, the impact is much more significant. Because of the deficit bill, a pack of pills may now cost up to $30, which for some, is highly unaffordable.

Because the price of birth control pills may soon be as unrealistic as the price of tuition, the rate of teenage pregnancy is bound to increase. And since teenage pregnancy is still considered taboo in the United States, the results may be horrific to some. As a result of teenage pregnancy, there will most likely be an increase in abortion. With an increase in abortion, there will be copious amounts of protests and potentially violent rallies. This price increase does not mean that college students will simply have to shell out another ten bucks every month ­- this issue could escalate into much more.

Aside from an increase in abortion, there will be many more people who use things like Levonorgestrel, better known as Plan B, or the morning-after pill, as a form of contraception due to the price hike. The morning after pill is not a form of contraception. This pill leaves your body confused and dismayed after you take it. And after two times of use, its effectiveness decreases. The morning after pill basically puts all of your body's energy into stopping a pregnancy, therefore, leaving your body extremely vulnerable to illness and infection. It is not very healthy or effective to take the pill more than twice.

While reading this, some people are probably thinking of the pill as a birth control method and nothing else. If that were true, people who couldn't afford the pill could simply stop having intercourse until they find something equally safe and affordable to use. But the pill is used for a variety of reasons. It can be prescribed for things such as acne and menstrual cramps to anorexia and protection from ovarian cancer. College students who are on the pill for reasons other than birth control will suffer the most. People can stop having intercourse or switch birth control methods, but they cannot control if they faint from bad cramps and low iron due to menstruation. MSNBC reports that at the health centers of some schools, "women could see prices raise several hundred dollars per year." That significant price increase is unjust, especially to students who are taking the pill for health reasons.

When drug companies found out about the deficit in 2005, they tried to think of ways to keep their costumers happy and keep their prices low by buying the pills in bulk. But why plan to do that? There is no reason to attempt to lower the cost of birth control. The price of oral contraceptives shouldn't have been increased in the first place. Out of all the medications that Medicaid handles, why something as significant and life-altering as the pill? They should raise the prices on other medications that are targeted towards a different age group. Viagra, for one, seems like a perfectly good medication to inflate the cost of. The majority of men who use Viagra can probably afford to pay ten dollars more a month than a college student who is working two jobs and trying to pay off school can.

There could be so many regrettable repercussions because of this deficit. The drug companies should have picked less significant drugs to inflate and they ought to have thought about the consequences of their actions before deciding something as unwise as this. Increasing the cost of the pill will affect countless people, and as a result there may be a butterfly effect that spins out of control.