The administration will be issuing guidance to allow employers to offer fertility perks as excepted benefits, a category that includes supplemental health coverage like dental and vision. The guidance will allow employers to offer add-on coverage at a fixed cost for patients and employers.
The White House previously issued an executive order directing the administration to produce by May policy recommendations aimed at lowering the cost of expensive fertility treatments. The report never came. Now, five months later, it’s addressing the technology that can cost upwards of $15,000 per procedure.
The “result will be healthier pregnancies, healthier babies and many more beautiful American children,” Trump said at a press conference from the Oval Office on Thursday.
Fertility was a frequent theme on the campaign trail for Trump, who once called himself the “father of IVF” at a town hall. But it’s a sticking point for some of his conservative base, particularly after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that frozen embryos could be considered children. Some fertility clinics suspended treatment until the Republican governor signed legislation protecting providers from liability.
“Endorsing IVF from the White House podium should have some positive impact on awareness and adoption for IVF, even if there are no actual financial benefits being provided to employers to adopt those benefits,” wrote Michael Cherny, an analyst at Leerink Partners, in a note to investors.
Trump has been taking steps to lower health care prices. He struck deals with Pfizer Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc to delay threatened tariffs on their medicines in exchange for charging the same in the US as they do abroad. The pharmaceutical companies also agreed to cut the prices they offer to the Medicaid health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans.
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