Birth control can be quite expensive. Insurance doesn't cover it. If you're on the average pill, it probably costs about $20 - $30 a month. If you are on the Nuva Ring, which has increased in popularity recently, it can run from $45 - $50 a month. We hate abortions in this country. About 20 percent of the country thinks that a female should have that baby even if she was raped, it was incest, and she is nine years old (no abortion under any circumstances). One would think that this callous hatred for abortion would in turn translate into a support and love fest for birth control as a preventative measure, but that doesn't seem to be the case either, as abstinence-only education continues to flourish.
Enter Wal-Mart, an unlikely good guy amid the folly of the government and the extremism of the people. Wal-Mart, with Target following its lead, decided to offer one-month supplies of generic birth control at a measly $9 a month. Those of you accustomed to normal birth control prices know that this is incredible and fantastic.
However, this plan was quickly quashed by several state anti-trust laws which prohibit the sale of such drugs at below cost. Nine states, including Wisconsin and Minnesota forced Wal-Mart to charge a much higher fee for birth control under the relevant anti-trust statutes. I don't know too much about anti-trust laws, but if public health and consumer benefits mean anything, it seems clear that application of such laws in this circumstance did more harm than good. I dug up this article on birth control only recently (see article here); although its almost 2 years old, I think it raises some interesting issues.
As nationalized, affordable health care has recently become a hot topic, I think it is interesting to point out Target and Wal-Mart as entities trying to achieve the same effect of cheap healthcare that are being hampered by the government. On a positive note, Wal-Mart continues to offer other generic drugs at $4 a month in various locations, as long as it is not "below cost."
Comments
Wow that is infuriating! Think of how much women (and people in general) are losing when the government makes it difficult to get cheaper forms of birth control. It is in our collective human interest to support various forms of contraception -- not only to avoid the painful decision of whether or not to choose abortion, but also so that people can exercise better control over their own lives. Not to mention how birth control can help to alleviate overpopulation in a world whose resources are in
Yeah, it makes me mad. I think California is one of the 9 states that have such laws. (I haven't heard of $9 BC at California Wal-marts and Targets, have you?)
The alleged purpose of many anti-trust laws, as I understand it, is to prevent big companies from becoming monopolies and offering expensive and crappy services and goods. By prohibiting big companies from selling drugs cheap, basically, these laws keeps afloat the smaller companies that are charging more for the same drugs.
H
So in this situation, Walmart and Target want to sell us cheap drugs, and we want them, but the government says, "no, you can't. Because we want to prop up other businesses who want to continue to charge you a bunch of money."
In the end, the consumer gets screwed.
Antitrust laws don't just make birth control more expensive. They make everything more expensive. Antitrust laws help the competitor who can't compete because he is inefficient, thus wasting society's resources on goods and services that someone else can supply cheaper. They never help the consumer
Not to worry, the pro-life? movement is hard at work to define life as a fertilized egg therefore making the IUD, the pill, and spermicides which all may cause an egg to abort according to them, illegal. Virgina is about to elect one of these freaks as governor. Soon women may not have to worry about the cost.
Hey Lee - what is the candidate's name? Is it Robert McDonnel? I'd like to maybe write about him.
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