Health Care Costs and Infertility
I have been reading many blog posts and comments that talk about the cost of infertility. Here are two as examples-
Couples in search of the perfect little family with the white picket fence will sometimes rack up thousands in insurance claims trying to conceive. Nature is trying to tell them something, but they just will not listen.
The idea that insurance companies should be forced to foot the bill is also nonsense and part of the reason costs are going through the roof.
These comments have me thinking about health care costs, personal financial burden and infertility. Sure, infertility is not life-threatening and the various treatments can be expensive as are many other medical treatments and interventions. As a result of our life stories, we are in danger of becoming biased as to what is and what is not important to us as a society. In an effort to reduce the costs of health care, we try to justify one treatment over another. Is it wrong to try to fix a system (reproductive or otherwise) that isn’t working as it should? Is it just as wrong to pay for procedures for people who are not taking good care of themselves? We are anticipating a huge increase in the number of people suffering from Type II diabetes – what are we doing about that now that will help reduce the future costs of this epidemic? Nature is trying to tell them something – are they listening? Health care costs are expensive due to smoking and other lifestyle choices. Whether it is right or not, we see and hear about companies raising the cost of health insurance to employees who they feel put a strain on a company’s health care costs.
A lot of infertility treatments are not that expensive. Only a small percentage of infertility clients can actually benefit from the use of high-tech expensive procedures such as IVF and of them, only some will be in a position to have it fully or even partially covered by a health insurance plan (we weren’t). I don’t know the breakdown of health insurance costs and the percentage that can be attributed to the cost of infertility treatments – I can’t imagine it being a very large chunk. Only a few state governments mandate that health insurance covers some or all of the costs of infertility treatments. Let’s hope that the other states follow in Massachusetts’ footsteps and make infertility treatments possible and affordable to all who want to build their families.
November 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Health Care Costs and Infertility…
I have been reading many blog posts and comments that talk about the cost of infertility. Here are two as examples- Couples in search of the perfect little family with the white picket fence will sometimes rack up thousands in insurance ……