Mary Margaret Olohan / X
The Trump administration has backed down on forcing insurance to cover in vitro fertilization (IVF), according to two anonymous sources cited in an Aug. 3 Washington Post report.
The administration does not plan to require health insurance companies to pay for the services, “two people with knowledge of internal discussions said,” the newspaper reported.
President Donald Trump had said in 2024 that if he won the election, the government would either pay for IVF or demand the companies cover the treatment. On Feb. 18, he issued an executive order that compelled Vince Haley, the assistant to the President for domestic policy, to recommend how to promote IVF and dramatically lower out-of-pocket and health plan costs for the controversial procedure, as CatholicVote previously reported.
CatholicVote was among several organizations and public figures who pushed back on that executive order. On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Bishop Daniel Thomas and Bishop Robert Barron said in a Feb. 20 statement that Trump’s plan was immoral and “fatally flawed.”
“As pastors, we see the suffering of so many couples experiencing infertility and know their deep desire to have children is both good and admirable; yet the Administration’s push for IVF, which ends countless human lives and treats persons like property, cannot be the answer,” the bishops wrote.
To date, there have not been any policy prescriptions from the Trump administration. The Post reported in the Aug. 3 article that “White House officials are backing away from proposals discussed internally to mandate IVF coverage for the roughly 50 million people on the Obamacare exchanges.” The publication’s backing for that claim was comments from anonymous sources “who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.”
According to the Post, a senior administration official who demanded anonymity for the same reason said that IVF access is still a “huge priority” for the President, but he can’t legally make it an “essential health benefit” under the Affordable Care Act without Congress passing a bill to that effect.
Abigail Jackson, the deputy press secretary at the White House, said in a statement in the article that Trump still wants to expand IVF.
“President Trump pledged to expand access to fertility treatments for Americans who are struggling to start families,” she told the Post. “The Administration is committed like none before it to using its authorities to deliver on this pledge.”