Women would be able to obtain a year’s supply of birth control pills under a bill aimed at improving access to contraception and reducing unintended pregnancies.

Senate Bill 2319, backed by the Women’s Legislative Caucus, has been passed by the Senate and today faces a full vote by the House of Representatives.

Prescriptions for birth control pills often have to be renewed or refilled every 30 or 90 days. The proposed measure would require private insurers, Medicaid plans and the Hawaii Employer-Union Benefits Trust Fund to cover 12-month reimbursements.

Two other bills that would have allowed pharmacists, and not just doctors and nurses, to directly prescribe a year’s supply of pills stalled in legislative committees this year.

Rep. Della Au Belatti (D, Moiliili- Makiki- Tantalus), chairwoman of the House Health Committee, said that there was a lack of consensus among lawmakers, stakeholders and advocacy groups about whether pharmacists should have prescribing authority.

“It’s still pretty cutting-edge,” she said.

California and Oregon recently passed laws allowing pharmacists to prescribe hormonal birth control. Lawmakers in Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington state have been debating similar measures, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, a public policy organization.

“I think we just wanted to wait and see how some of the other jurisdictions were dealing with these problems,” said Belatti, whose committee shelved the proposal.

Women in Hawaii have a higher than average rate of unintended pregnancies, with 61 out of 1,000 women getting pregnant unintentionally in 2010, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a policy and research organization focused on sexual and reproductive health. Nationally the average is 45 unintended pregnancies per 1,000 women.

Women’s advocates say that a 12-month supply of birth control pills could help reduce this rate while cutting down on health care costs associated with births and abortions.

Almost every year, a student in one of her classes at the University of Hawaii at Manoa finds herself grappling with an unplanned pregnancy, according to Susan Wurtzburg, policy chairwoman of the American Association of University Women — Hawaii, who submitted written testimony in support of the bill.

She says that women sometimes lack reliable transportation to doctor’s offices, clinics and pharmacies, and have to deal with pharmacies not filling their prescriptions in a timely manner or running out of pills.

“Providing 12 months of prescription contraception at a time is far cheaper than dealing with the outcomes of not providing it this way, and having women miss taking their pills,” she wrote.

Testimony on the bill has been largely supportive, but the measure has raised concerns from the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii, citing possible waste if women lose their pills.

“Insured customers could lose part of the 12-month supply or have unforeseen side effects and may require a prescription change,” according to testimony from the business advocacy organization. “Also, employers will need to assume the cost of a year’s supply of contraceptives even if they may no longer employ that individual.”