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Politics and Government News
Dana Ferguson
St. Paul

Minnesota Democrats weigh in on national IVF debate, push infertility treatment coverage

Person points at screen
An embryologist shows an Ovocyte after it was inseminated at the Virginia Center for Reproductive Medicine, in Reston, V.A.
Ivan Couronne | AFP via Getty Images 2019

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Minnesota Democrats are pushing to require health plans to cover the cost of infertility treatments and to cement access to the services in state law.

After the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that embryos produced through IVF could be considered children, some fertility clinics paused treatments to consider the legal repercussions. Democrats around the country seized on the issue and have sought to tie GOP lawmakers to the decision that barred clinics from destroying unused embryos. 

“The absolute outrageousness of thinking that a politician or the government would inject themselves in that decision is so far beyond even imagining,” Gov. Tim Walz told reporters last week. “We know that this is an attack on reproductive freedoms, we know it’s an attack on women’s choices on health, it’s an attack on families’ decisions about having children and supporting them.”

In national TV interviews and in stops around the state, Walz has blasted the decision and shared the story of how he and his wife Gwen started their family through IVF.

“As a sixth grade teacher, if you do that, you really love children. So we thought we’d have some of our own,” Walz told reporters last week. “We used Mayo Clinic’s fertility [program], we had access to that. And I said when our daughter was born, that is why she’s named Hope. Because that was where we were at.”

The ruling has sparked new conversations about whether Minnesota law does enough to ensure access to infertility treatment. Lawmakers last year approved and signed into law a proposal guaranteeing the right to reproductive health care and some said the measure extends to infertility treatment.

Others say clearer language is needed to guarantee access.

“I am looking at adding language in [to a bill] that expressly protects people’s right to IVF,” said Sen. Erin Maye Quade. “Minnesotans are terrified as they’re seeing what’s happening in Alabama, and it’s spreading to other states.”

The Apple Valley Democrat is carrying a bill to require health plans to cover the cost of infertility treatment.

“We want people to be able to build their families and not be priced out of being able to start or grow their family,” Maye Quade said. “And that’s just the case for so many families, they have to mortgage their houses or sell their houses, have bake sales, cash out their 401Ks and that’s not the situation we want people to start growing their families.”

Leaders in both chambers and Walz say the bill is a top priority this year. Lawmakers are also mulling a slate of proposals this year that would require insurers to cover abortion, gender-affirming care and other services.

Taken together, business leaders and health insurance providers said the changes could drive up expenses for Minnesotans. 

“Every time there is a mandate that’s included in required coverage in the state of Minnesota, that tends to drive the cost of insurance up for all persons who are premium payers for insurance,” Rep. Tim O’Driscoll, R-Sartell, said during a committee hearing on the proposals.

GOP lawmakers said if taxpayers are asked to foot part of the bill, the state should also collect more information about how the infertility treatments are being used. Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, carried an amendment that would have required additional reporting requirements.

“There are situations in which fertility clinics are creating 30-40 embryos so that parents can sex select or things like that. That happens in some places. I would hope nobody would want that to be happening in the state of Minnesota,” Niska said. “Having information is not a bad thing for something the state of Minnesota is paying for, that insurance companies are paying for under a state mandate."

Niska pulled the amendment after blowback from DFLers on the committee who said it intruded on patient privacy. He also sought another amendment that would allow some health plans to seek exemptions from the coverage requirement if it doesn’t square with their religious beliefs. That also fell short.

The bill is moving through committees in both chambers.