UHS Absorbs Increasing Pill Costs

Looking for affordable birth control? Congress may not have you covered, but Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) does.

A 2005 federal law that has resulted in higher contraceptive prices for many university students has not done so for Harvard Student Health Plan subscribers, according to HUHS officials.

Prior to last year, many pharmaceutical companies sold birth control products to university pharmacies at a deeply discounted price. But one result of the complex “Deficit Reduction Act”—passed by Congress in 2005—is that continued university discounts would increase the fees that pharmaceutical companies must pay to include their drugs in Medicaid, according to the Associated Press.

Medicaid is the government subsidized health insurance program for low-income citizens.

After the act took effect in January 2006, many pharmaceutical manufacturers discontinued their university discounts on contraceptives. In turn, many university pharmacies increased the cost of those contraceptives to their consumers.

Several university newspapers have reported three-fold to four-fold price increases—for instance, from roughly $8 to roughly $40 at Kansas State University, according to the University Daily Kansan. The Columbia Daily Spectator wrote that many students were forgoing their purchases of birth control pills rather than pay the inflated prices.

However, HUHS has insulated its students from the cost increase through fixed co-payments and through the use of non-brand-name equivalent medications.

According to Director of Pharmacy Services at HUHS Benedict J. DiRusso, most universities provide their students with a managed health care program like HUHS, yet require that students subscribe to an external insurance plan for their prescription drugs and other costs.

At Harvard, however, HUHS provides prescription coverage directly.

Under Harvard’s student health plan, up to 30 days of a generic-brand medicine cost a co-payment of $10; “preferred brand name” medicines, $20; and “non-preferred brand name” medicines, $35. Even if the cost of a particular medication fluctuates, it remains within the same co-payment tier.

According to DiRusso, the 2005 bill primarily affected five particular medicines, “and in each of those cases, there was a generic equivalent.”

“To the students, there is no increased cost, because the co-pays are not increasing,” said Mark L. Hurwitz, finance director for health plans at HUHS.

Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo is the only affected drug without a generic counterpart. However, DiRusso says the HUHS pharmacy still holds large stockpiles of the medication from before the new law came into effect.

“We will keep that [medicine] at a generic co-pay, and then there will be a decision once we run out of stock on what we’re going to do,” DiRusso said.

Still, some Harvard students expressed chagrin at the increased costs nationwide.

“I think everyone can agree that there should be less abortions, and birth control is a big part of that,” said Susan Y. Yao ’09.

Jessica S. Benjamin ’07 pointed out that estrogen and progestin medications are commonly used for treatments other than birth control.

“[The act is] putting those people who are using this for a medical purpose, rather than [for] birth control, at a disadvantage,” she said.

—Staff writer Nicholas K. Tabor can be reached at ntabor@fas.harvard.edu.