Struggling to conceive? MN bill would mandate insurers cover infertility treatment
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A proposed new law would require insurance companies to cover fertility treatment for Minnesota couples who need medical help to have children.
The bill isn’t scheduled for a vote or even any committee hearings yet, but advocates want it on the radar early as this year’s session gets underway.
Isla Gran reached out as her mother shared the story of her complicated conception. Miraya and Andy Gran tried in vitro fertilization and failed seven times.
"The horrific emotional pain of infertility is devastating enough, but to add on, the crippling financial impact was an extremely difficult time in our lives," said Miraya Gran.
They took out a second mortgage to get that far and needed family fundraisers to try again.
"Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine having to have a bake sale to have a baby," Miraya Tran said.
The eighth time was the charm and Isla was born three years ago. But her parents are still in debt.
Illustration picture shows a doctor doing an ultrasound examination during a visit of a pregnant woman to her gynaecologist, in Mechelen, Thursday 31 January 2019. BELGA PHOTO JASPER JACOBS (Photo credit should read JASPER JACOBS/AFP via Getty Images (Getty Images)
They each work two jobs and none of them offers insurance covering fertility treatment.
The proposed new law would require insurance companies to offer coverage for four completed egg retrievals per year and unlimited implantations. They’d also have to cover fertility preservation for cancer patients.
"Every leading health care organization now recognizes infertility as a disease and does not consider its treatment to be elective," said Dr. Chandra Shenoy, a Mayo Clinic infertility specialist.
Insurance companies have opposed similar bills in other states and say it would drive up costs for everyone, but the Minnesota bill’s Senate sponsor says the increase is as little as 4 cents a day per person and the coverage is priceless.
"It is a disease for some people like anything else and health insurance should cover it, plain and simple," said Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, who said her own IVF treatment cost $12,000 out of pocket. (Maye Quade had her child before she became a state employee where insurance would've covered it.)
Twenty-one other states have laws mandating fertility coverage from insurers.