Chair Harris, Vice-Chair Munoz and members of the Senate Insurance Committee:
My name is Courtney Joslin and I am a resident fellow for the R Street Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization whose mission is to engage in policy research that supports free markets and limited, effective government. I lead R Street’s research on state policies for birth control access, with a focus on sensible deregulatory efforts such as pharmacist-prescribed birth control. I appreciate the opportunity to elaborate on why I support HB 135, and how this model has brought positive outcomes to other states
Since 2015, 18 states and Washington, D.C., have begun allowing pharmacists to prescribe hormonal birth control. The pharmacy access model, as it is often called, has caught on for several reasons. First, this model is safe. Leading medical organizations, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Family Physicians, support access to birth control without any prescription barrier.[1] [1] This is due to birth control’s time-tested safety and efficacy. Further, pharmacists are trained medication experts, and over 3,300 pharmacies are now safely offering birth control consultations.[2] [2] Research has also shown that pharmacists are no more likely than doctors to prescribe hormonal birth control to a patient with contraindications, which suggests that they are successfully prescribing just as accurately.[3] [3]