UUA: Social Justice

Restore Affordable Birth Control

The cost of contraceptives sold at student health centers and some community clinics rose earlier this year due to a provision in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) that unintentionally cut off these health centers from receiving low-cost drugs. In many cases the cost has risen by 900%! This has forced many college women and low-income women to stop using contraceptives due to cost. The Prevention Through Affordable Access Act (H.R. 4054/S. 2347) has been introduced in the U.S. Congress to allow drug manufacturers to resume offering deeply discounted prices to safety-net health care providers. The bill would be a no-cost, technical fix that will restore the nominal prices to these clinics and ensure that college women and low-income women have access to affordable birth control. Please contact your members of Congress and urge them to support this bipartisan legislation.

November 21, 2009

Subject:

As a Unitarian Universalist, I am committed to accessible health care, especially for the most vulnerable. I strongly urge you to co-sponsor the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act (H.R. 4054/S. 2347), that would address the current birth control pricing crisis. Due to a provision in the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), as of January 1, 2007, every college and university health center and hundreds of safety-net providers were unintentionally cut off from accessing low-cost birth control. Skyrocketing prices are putting birth control out of reach of more than 3 million college students and hundreds of thousands of low-income women. This legislation would have no cost to either the federal government or state Medicaid agencies. It would merely restore the ability of pharmaceutical companies to resume the decades-old practice of offering nominally-price birth control to college health centers and safety-net providers, who in turn provide affordable birth control to college and low-income women. 
  
Low-income and uninsured women need affordable family planning services. A woman with low income is 4 times as likely to have an unintended pregnancy, 5 times as likely to have an unintended birth and 4 times more likely to have an abortion than a woman with higher income. Unintended pregnancy can perpetuate poverty, interrupt education and job opportunities, and create family hardship.  
 
More than 140 members of the House and Senate of both parties are co-sponsoring the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act (H.R. 4054/S. 2347) to correct this problem and lower the cost of contraceptives sold at student health centers and safety-net clinics. As your constituent, I am counting on you to support this bipartisan legislation to restore affordable birth control to college health clinics and safety-net providers.

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