California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 729 on September 29. This law will require large health care plan contracts and disability insurance policies to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization beginning July 1, 2025.
Senate Bill 729 was authored by State Senator Caroline Menjivar. It will provide expanded insurance coverage for infertility and fertility services.
As established in the legislation, “the bill would revise the definition of infertility and eliminate the exclusion of in vitro fertilization from coverage.”
IVF treatments or fertility care are often expensive and unaffordable for many uninsured Californians. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has reported that the average cost of IVF treatment can be up to $20,000 without insurance.
In September, about a week before Newsom signed the legislation, Republican state senators blocked a bill to provide access to IVF treatments nationwide.
In his signing message, Newsom stated: “As a national leader in increasing access to reproductive health care and protecting patients and providers, including those under attack in other states, I want to be clear: the right to care fertility and IVF is protected in California.”
Newsom is a founding member of the Alliance for Reproductive Freedom, a nonpartisan coalition, and has been advocating in support of reproductive rights for many years.
“In January of this year, we began the process of updating the state’s ‘benchmark plan,’ which will set a new standard for commercial insurance health coverage,” Newsom said in his signing message. “Services under evaluation specifically include infertility treatment and IVF.”
The Senate bill has an implementation date of July 1, 2025; However, Newsom has requested that the implementation date be changed to January 1, 2026, to allow for an “evaluation of the costs and benefit design in this project within that broader context.” Legislation may approve or deny your request.
Bea Williams can be contacted at [email protected].
This article has been generated using ChatGPT and edited by Milca Elvira Chacon.
