We need IVF in order to conceive due to surgical complications resulting from a miscarriage. IVF costs ~$20,000 a cycle and is not, in most cases, covered by insurance. A movement to expand insurance coverage in the United States is rising, but they must undo decades of misunderstanding and mischaracterization of infertility. For example, our insurance provider, Aetna, denied us IVF coverage stating that the procedure was experimental. After forty years and 8 million births, IVF is not “experimental.” Another thing insurance companies have historically stayed away from: women’s bodies. Because infertility has long been considered a women’s health issue, insurance companies perceived it as a niche issue and denied coverage to those experiencing it. This is despite the fact that nearly half of all cases are due to “male factor infertility.”
Approximately 12% of American women have difficulty becoming pregnant or carrying a baby to term, making infertility a condition roughly as common as diabetes. So why must this growing population of women struggling to conceive suffer this financial burden?
These layers of sexism, economics and ignorance need to be peeled away before insurance companies see IVF as an essential medical treatment.
Getting Prague-nat 