There’s an interesting article in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer called "$10,000 babies." The article, by Tim Bonfield, introduces couples who go to extremes to pay for fertility treatment:
- The woman who loved her job, but elected to change jobs because her new employer offered fertility benefits.
- The couples who go to Mexico, Canada or Europe for fertility drugs, and those who trade medications over the Internet with other infertile couples.
- Those who take out huge loans or borrow against their credit cards.
Some of the stats that Bonfield mentions in his article include:
- An estimated 6 million couples per year — 10 percent of all married people, experience fertility challenges.
- Success rates for first-time in-vitro fertilization (IVF) are going up. Ten years ago, the success rates were 20 percent; now they are 50 percent in women younger than 35.
- Since 1978, when the first "test tube baby" was born in England, over 250,000 children have been born in the United States as a result of fertility treatment.
- Most states do not require health insurers to offer infertility coverage. Only 15 states require at least some fertility coverage (with many restrictions attached).
- Insurers assert that infertility benefits are not medically necessary, saying that offering full benefits would drive up insurance costs for everyone. A spokesman for one insurance company estimated that providing such benefits would increase costs for all employers by 2-3 percent.
- Many employers cover adoption costs but not fertility treatment.