Despite hike, Hall Health still has best deals on “the pill”

Talk of the new male birth control pill being developed at the UW has some women yearning for the days ahead, when men can carry more of the burden of the daily chemical shakeup. Don’t get too excited, ladies: It will be at least a few more years before you can switch the pill to your partner.

Complicating the frustrations of women, prices went up sharply for the pill here on campus this year, a result of Congress’s passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which stopped the drug companies from offering discounts on the pill to college health clinics and went into effect at the end of 2006.

Less than a year ago, the average cost of a month’s supply of the pill at Hall Health was around $15. Today it’s around $25. That’s a pretty steep hike, but despite initial concerns from some corners that the increase would result in a decline in reliance on birth control, Hall Health Pharmacy Director John Medina hasn’t noticed such a trend. “Students seem to be making it work with their budgets,” Medina said.

Because Hall Health is a non-profit, he added, they still have a few dollars’ edge on corporate pharmacies, so the incentive to stay on campus is retained.

The 2005 law removed incentives that had existed for drug companies to sell to colleges at a discounted rate. Hall Health had stocked up on the discounted drugs, but the supply finally ran out at the end of April.

The American College Health Association is working to get Congress to reinstate the incentives of the old law.

Memos a slap in the face

Despite years of intense denial by the Bush administration, Justice Department memorandums exposed last week by The New York Times reveal that the CIA has indeed been using tactics in their interrogations that many believe constitute torture, such as head slapping and simulated drowning (through a technique known as “water boarding”).

White House spokesperson Dana Perino defended the memos, saying that the Bush administration has “done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country.”

In fact, water boarding could be an abridgement of U.S. torture laws in that it induces a feeling that death is imminent. U.S. law specifically forbids “the threat of imminent death” in interrogation tactics.

Some in Congress have demanded to see the classified memos, while Bush has steadfastly pronounced that he has kept “appropriate” members of Congress informed.

Children left behind

Last week, George W. Bush issued only the fourth veto of his presidency to stop a bipartisan bill that would have given health care to four million children from lower-income families.

“Poor kids first,” Bush explained, implying that the bill would have covered some kids who weren’t “poor” enough to justify providing them with health care.

There are an estimated 9 million children in the United States without any health care, and a 2007 study by CBS News concluded that an additional 11.5 million children go without health care for at least a part of each year.

The bill Bush vetoed would have nearly doubled a program that covers more than six million children from low-income families. Funding for the program was to come from increased taxes on tobacco, a chief cause of many health care costs in the United States.

Congressional Democrats have vowed an attempt to override the veto, while Republican leaders claim that the effort will be met with failure. A two-thirds majority is needed in both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto.

The final votes in the House and Senate supporting the bill were 265-159 and 67-29, respectively. Washington Senators Murray and Cantwell, both Democrats, voted for the bill. Local Congressperson Jim McDermott, also a Democrat, was a co-sponsor.

[Reach reporter Matt Dundas at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]