Miraya Gran and her husband took out a second mortgage and held a fundraiser for the family to conceive their first child through in vitro fertilization in 2021. She still doesn’t have insurance coverage for IVF and even though she has two embryos waiting to be implanted, she can’t cover the cost of a sibling for her daughter alone. (Courtesy of Miraya Gran)
Miraya Gran is the type of person Republican President Donald Trump and his administration want to facilitate fresh guidelines on the subject of in vitro fertilization.
She needed a second mortgage on her Minnesota home and a family fundraiser to afford the IVF treatment she needed to give birth to her first child in 2021. Grandma’s husband suffers from male infertility and she suffers from a genetic blood disorder, making it extremely challenging for them to conceive on their own. But unless the cost of artificial insemination drops significantly, grandma can’t afford to give her daughter a sibling.
“I have two embryos waiting for me that I cannot access due to lack of insurance,” she said.
But Gran no longer has much hope that IVF costs will come down enough following Trump’s announcement at the White House on Thursday, October 16. The president said his administration has negotiated significant discounts on a key fertility drug as well as a fresh regulation allowing employers to offer IVF insurance as a standalone insurance policy like dental or vision insurance. EMD Serono, a major pharmaceutical brand, will offer the drug at an 84% discount through direct sales on a government website called TrumpRX, according to a company representative who spoke at the White House event.
Grandma said that wasn’t good enough. Drug prices are only part of what makes treatment exorbitant. An IVF cycle costs between $12,000 and $25,000 on average, but can cost more depending on medical needs. Many people need more than one round of IVF to get pregnant.
Furthermore, the fresh policy only clears the way for employers to offer insurance options – the government does not require it.
“They have the ability to hold insurance companies accountable,” Gran said. “There’s really no solution for our community until we have insurance coverage.”
Trump campaigned on the promise of IVF treatment free for everyoneeither through federal funding or through insurance, but has not yet fulfilled that promise.
Dr. Eve Feinberg is a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Northwestern University and a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist who treats IVF patients daily. She said reducing drug costs is a positive step, but that is only about a third of the cost of a typical IVF cycle – in some cases even less.
“For some patients, the medication can cost up to half,” Feinberg said. “If you have a good supply of eggs, you need less medication. If you have a smaller supply of eggs, you need more. So for some it’s $3,000… and for others it’s $10,000.”
“Restorative reproductive medicine” is not a replacement for IVF, says the doctor
Trump’s promise to make IVF free is challenging to fulfill, not only because of the overall cost but also because of disagreements among conservative groups over the ethics of the treatment. During IVF, as many eggs as possible are removed and then fertilized. Some are later destroyed because they would not survive implantation in the uterus due to abnormalities or other medical factors.
The Supreme Court of Alabama decided in 2024 that embryos have the same legal rights as children who were born medical community into chaos and led to the closure of some IVF clinics in Alabama. Later that year, the Southern Baptist Convention passed an anti-IVF resolution expressing the church’s opposition to the practice.
The verdict came just as Latorya Beasley awaited the transfer date for the embryo she hoped would become her second child. Her clinic temporarily canceled appointments, but eventually reopened and she was able to have a second child. Beasley had IVF insurance through her employer, which only about 25% of companies with more than 200 employees nationwide offer. according to KFF. However, there were still out-of-pocket costs.
“There was a point where we ran out of medication for about a day and ended up paying $1,000 out of pocket for it,” Beasley said. “And all with insurance coverage.”
Feinberg said she was also concerned about aspects of the announcement that “restorative reproductive medicine“It is a newer specialty of medicine that is not recognized by the same medical bodies that govern reproductive endocrinology. The practice has been promoted by the Heritage Foundation – a conservative advocacy group that launched Project 2025 – as the “new frontier” of reproductive medicine.
“There were certain things said in the briefing that gave me the idea that the idea of fertility insurance, particularly for companies whose beliefs and ideas are religiously focused and religiously based, may mean offering restorative reproductive medicine and not offering IVF,” she said.
Restorative practice focuses on monitoring the cycle to conceive, as well as weight loss and nutrition. Feinberg said she had a patient who had been using these methods for four years without success, and she was 43 when a reproductive specialist told her that her husband had such a low sperm count that they had no way of getting pregnant without medical intervention.
“He had a genetic mutation that the restorative reproductive medicine specialist was never trained to diagnose,” she said. “They could and should have done IVF.”
Gran and Beasley said if the Trump administration came forward with plans that would make a real difference for families needing IVF, they would be the first to celebrate. But until then, the lack of action is frustrating.
“It just feels like a traveling salesman is selling me a full line, because until there’s actually a substantiated change, I have no confidence in what they’re saying,” Gran said.
This story was originally produced by News from the Stateswhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes West Virginia Watch, and is a 501c(3) public charity supported by grants and a coalition of donors.
