POTTERVILLE, Mich. – Former President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News on Thursday that his administration, if elected, would protect the availability of in vitro fertilization while paying for the expensive service for both the government and insurance companies. American women in need.
“We’re going to be under the Trump administration, we’re going to pay for this treatment,” Trump said.
Asked to clarify whether the government would pay for IVF services or whether insurance companies would pay for it, Trump reiterated that one option would be for insurance companies to pay “under the mandate, yes.”
Abortion and IVF have been a political liability for the GOP this year. Democrats have blamed Republicans on IVF in recent months, saying GOP restrictions on abortion could also lead to restrictions on IVF.
Earlier this year Alabama state The Supreme Court has decided Embryos created through IVF should be considered human, prompting the largest fertility clinics in the state to stop IVF care.
Trump’s stance could put him at odds with anti-abortion advocates who oppose certain parts of the IVF process that involve discarding unused embryos.
Currently, few people have insurance plans that cover fertility treatments like IVF, leaving many couples to pay the high costs of treatment out of pocket. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates the cost per patient for one cycle of IVF at about $20,000.
According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies, its member clinics performed 389,993 IVF cycles in 2022. At a cost of about $20,000 each, that works out to $7.8 billion a year.
However, a growing number of employers have begun offering fertility benefits in the past decade — some paying a fixed amount of a patient’s costs, others with a lifetime maximum of a certain number of cycles.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, recently told NBC News that he was “frustrated that reproductive rights is a bunch of pro-family things that Republicans are much better at than Democrats. And the media is always in the spotlight. But you know, we’ve got people fighting this.” We’ve done a lot to promote fertility treatment.”
Trump’s position on IVF is the latest example of his 2024 campaign addressing criticism of the administration through policy proposals. After criticism from Democrats that his 2017 tax plan favored the wealthy, he announced that he would eliminate taxes on service worker tips if re-elected.
Now, as he and other Republicans face criticism for nominating and confirming Supreme Court justices who struck down Roe, Trump is proposing to protect IVF and address its costs.
In the interview, Trump did not make clear how he would vote on an upcoming ballot measure in his home state of Florida that would guarantee the right to abortion until the fetus is viable. He repeated past criticism that Florida’s current six-week abortion limit signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis is “too short.” “It will take more time,” Trump added.
“I’m going to vote that it takes more than six weeks,” he said of how he would vote in November.
Trump it is long gheback and forth on position on abortion The issue should be in the hands of the states before coming to their current position.
As President, Roe v. Before Wade was cancelled, he he once summoned the Senate adopting a 20-week ban on abortion. After leaving office, he celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe and national abortion rights, saying at one point, “I could have killed Roe v. Wade.” in a social media post.
But as the presidential race took shape this year, the former president has distanced himself from other Republicans on the issue, with abortion in particular emerging as a key issue for Vice President Kamala Harris and her allies.
In a speech at the Democratic convention last week, Harris called Trump and Vance “out of their minds” and accused them of planning to “ban medication abortions and introduce abortion nationwide.”
In the interview, Trump said “exceptions are very important to me” on abortion policy, adding later: “I believe in exceptions for the life of the mother … consanguinity, rape.”
On Thursday, Trump also pushed back on criticism of his visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, saying a family “asked me if I would take a picture at the graveside of their loved one who should not have died.”
The former president said that he did not initiate the photo and said, “I didn’t ask for a photo when I was there. When I was there, they said, ‘Sir, can we take a photo at the grave?’ “
Trump’s campaign has faced criticism this week after reports emerged that he was a member of Trump’s staff “shoved aside” the cemetery employee He tried to prevent Trump and others from taking photos and videos at Section 60, where soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried and where filming is usually prohibited.