A proposal that would cut the price of birth control pills and devices at university health clinics and Planned Parenthood centers was retained in the Senate version of the war supplemental spending bill sent to the House on Thursday.

The provision seeks to undo part of a 2006 deficit reduction law (PL 109-171) that squeezed a total of $38.9 billion in savings from a variety of programs, including federal student loans, Medicare and Medicaid.

That law removed university clinics and private birth control clinics from the list of entities eligible for “nominal” pricing under the Public Health Service Act (PL 78-410) — a law enacted in 1944 and revised numerous times since then — which outlines a series of federal health program partnerships with states, localities and nonprofit schools, among other provisions.

Proponents of the drug discounts that benefited low-income women and college students say those discounts were not intended to be discontinued by the 2006 law.

The administration saw it differently, and roughly 400 college, community and Planned Parenthood clinics lost birth control discounts.

An amendment to the supplemental war spending bill adopted, 75-22, by the Senate on Thursday would restore the drug price discounts. That amendment would also provide a variety of domestic spending.

The move angered some Republicans.

“Sneaking a divisive provision into a war spending bill that will help Planned Parenthood . . . is politics as usual — not change,” said John Hart, spokesman for conservative Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Hart said Wednesday that Coburn was looking at ways to address the provision, but it wasn’t the subject of any floor debate Thursday.

Echoes of Obama Language

The provision in the supplemental spending bill that would restore the discounts mirrors legislation (S 2347) introduced in November 2007 by Sen. Barack Obama , D-Ill. A spokeswoman for Joseph Crowley , D-N.Y., who introduced similar legislation (HR 4054) in the House, said Crowley has worked on the issue with Sens. Obama; Patty Murray , D-Wash.; and Max Baucus , D-Mont.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, is also a cosponsor.

Proponents of the repeal say that providing lower-cost birth control reduces abortions.

Obama’s legislation was cosponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., and Bob Casey , D-Pa., who are both abortion opponents.