JEFFREY SINGER: It’s Time to Free Birth Control from the Third-Party Trap.

Currently the average cash price of prescription birth control pills runs from $20 to $50 per month, but may sometimes range as low $9 per month. Planned Parenthood and various community health centers across the United States provide free birth control pills for those unable to afford them. A switch in drug status from prescription to OTC is likely to bring prices down further.

As is the case with doctor, hospital and lab bills, the presence of a third-party payer results in higher prices for prescription drugs than would otherwise be the case if a pharmacy dealt directly with the patient. That’s because the third-party payer system severs the direct link between the consumer and the producer of goods and services that allows market forces to work. Doctors, hospitals, labs and pharmacies negotiate with a deeper-pocketed third party, not the consumer, to arrive at a price. . . . When the FDA reclassifies a prescription drug to over-the-counter, it extracts it from the third-party spending trap. As consumers play their part, market forces often bring prices down and new competitors often enter the market.

But what about the poor fish?