Congressional Dems urge OPM to fully cover IVF in feds’ insurance program

A group of more than 175 congressional Democrats on Monday urged the Office of Personnel Management to require insurance carriers that participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to fully cover in vitro fertilization, as the procedure increasingly gets caught up in Republican-led efforts to curtail or ban abortion.

This year marked the first year that the FEHBP meaningfully covered assisted reproductive technologies, including artificial insemination and related drugs, as well as drugs associated with up to three in vitro fertilization cycles per year. Out-of-pocket costs for a single cycle of IVF can cost between $15,000 and $30,000, of which 35% can be attributed to prescription drugs associated with the procedure.

In a letter to outgoing OPM Director Kiran Ahuja, the group of lawmakers, led by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., urged the federal government’s HR agency to continue to expand access to in vitro fertilization in 2025.

“While significant work remains to be done to improve IVF access, which includes ensuring comprehensive plan designs are inclusive of LGBTQ and solo individuals who rely on medical intervention to build their families, your leadership in making sure FEHB plans cover IVF medications represents meaningful progress in expanding access to fertility treatments, which will ultimately prove life-changing for families across the country,” they wrote. “As OPM begins to prepare for plan year 2025, we strongly urge you to build on the impressive progress the Biden administration has made in empowering the federal government to effectively recruit and retain the next generation of civil servants by requiring all FEHB carriers to cover IVF medical treatments and medications.”

The push comes as IVF has increasingly come under fire by some in the anti-abortion movement. In February, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally “children.” That decision effectively banned IVF in the state, due to the fact that when frozen embryos are thawed, there is a small chance that they may be damaged or destroyed. Following broad criticism of the court ruling, the state's legislature passed a law in March protecting IVF doctors from any legal liability that could result from the decision.

“At a time when IVF is increasingly under attack by the extreme personhood movement, President Biden would send a strong message that his administration, in word and deed, are true champions of safeguarding the right of families to decide if, when and how to build a family,” the lawmakers wrote. “Requiring FEHB carriers to cover IVF medical treatments and medications for plan year 2025 would reflect the reality that IVF is one of the most effective treatments for families struggling with infertility, and growing in popularity, with its usage nearly doubling from 2012 to 2021.”

By requiring IVF coverage in the nation’s largest employer-sponsored health insurance program, Democrats argued that the federal government could meet Biden’s expectation that it be a “model employer,” potentially causing more companies in the private sector to follow suit.

“FEHB is a national trend setter for employer-sponsored coverage choices and making IVF coverage a default requirement would accelerate the adoption of pro-family policies beyond FEHB to ensure that more workers with employer-sponsored coverage are able to access IVF medical treatments,” the letter states. “Simply put, at a time when seemingly every politician is loudly declaring their support for IVF—even when many of those same politicians support the personhood movement that has endangered IVF’s future—President Biden has an opportunity to demonstrate strong leadership by taking decisive action to make the scientific miracle that is IVF accessible to many more Americans, beginning with our dedicated federal workforce.”