Trump moves to push employers on IVF coverage and lower fertility drug costs | Trump administration
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is urging U.S. employers to create new fertility benefit options to cover in vitro fertilization and other infertility treatments.
In a statement from the Oval Office, Donald Trump also said his administration had reached an agreement with drugmaker EMD Serono to reduce the cost of one of its fertility drugs and list the drug on the TrumpRx government website.
These measures, Trump said, would lead to “a lot more beautiful American children.”
“In the Trump administration, we want to make it easier for all couples to have babies, raise children and build the family they’ve always dreamed of,” Trump said.
Employers are encouraged to offer the fertility benefit option separately from their medical coverage, in the same way that dental and vision coverage is typically offered to employees. The Department of Labor, Treasury and Department of Health will also issue guidance Thursday on how employers can legally create this option.
However, Republicans at the news conference framed the benefit as a “recommendation,” saying employers will not be required to offer this coverage or receive government subsidies to do so. Without new incentives to offer IVF coverage, it’s unclear how many employers will ultimately support it.
Trump, who has proclaimed himself the “fertilization president,” has made support for infertility treatments a major plank of his re-election campaign, particularly after the nation erupted in outrage when the Alabama Supreme Court referred to embryos as “ectopic children.” Because IVF can lead to the creation of unused or discarded embryos, this decision temporarily forced many Alabama IVF providers to stop working.
Yet in the months since taking office, the Trump administration has remained silent on the issue. In February, he signed an executive order directing the administration’s domestic policy council to make recommendations to “aggressively” reduce the price of IVF, which often costs tens of thousands of dollars and is often not covered by insurance.
A detailed report on the recommendations was to be made public by May. No report has ever been published.
While IVF is extremely popular among Americans, the Republican Party’s deep ties to the anti-abortion movement have made it something of a political minefield among Republican elected officials. The movement has long opposed IVF because its advocates believe embryos are people.
White House officials have discussed in recent months the possibility of supporting restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), a constellation of therapies believed to restore individuals’ “natural” fertility.
Although RRM is popular among abortion advocates and followers of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, several major medical organizations say there is little quality evidence showing that RRM is more effective in helping people have babies than traditional fertility medicine.
Trump did not mention RRM in his Thursday speech.
