Birth Control Cost Set to Spike After Obamacare Repeal

With the new President and members of Congress set to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly referred to as Obamacare, you may have seen a number of blogs about why women need to swap their oral contraceptives for an IUD.

The Affordable Care Act required insurance companies to provide women with access to preventive services—which, includes everything from mammograms to cervical cancer screenings, and includes birth control—with no cost-sharing. Under the ACA, this meant women did not have to pay up to $60 a month for the Pill or hundreds of dollars for an IUD.

Research from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that since 2012, there’s been a drop in spending on retail drugs. Oral contraceptive pills account for 63 percent of that drop. In other words, prescription savings on the Pill totals more than half of all the money saved on drugs since the ACA was established.

Many birth control pills have generic versions with a lower price. Talk to your physician or pharmacist about generics if cost is a concern. Also, check with your insurance company before getting a prescription to find out which birth control pills are on their formulary of covered medications.

Examples of some common brand name combination birth control pills include (click the drug name to check pricing):

Currently, birth control pills are free with the ACA, but that might change in the future. And while it’s impossible to predict the exact impact repealing the ACA will have on increasing out-of-pocket expenses for contraceptives, we do know:

• Under the ACA, copay-free birth control made it possible for women to avoid paying up to $60 a month for the Pill
• Since 2012 there’s been a drop in what we’ve spent on retail drugs—and 63 percent of it is attributed to oral contraceptive pills
• The Senate has already started making moves to repeal the ACA, making the threat on no-cost-sharing birth control very real
• Women spent on average $255 more annually for oral contraceptive pills before the ACA went into effect

If you’re concerned about the impact repealing Obamacare will have on the cost of your contraceptive pills, talk to your doctor or pharmacist, and visit www.WellRx.com for the best savings on prescription medications.