Politician finds my IF blog and leaves a comment

UPDATE Jan2 2009.

This post has been severly edited. I removed any identifying terms.


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I paused before I clicked "publish" on my posts regarding the attempted repeal of the AR IVF mandate. It would have been very easy to hide all the search terms that could out me. But I opted not to hide. Why should I? I am proudly pregnant - for now - with thanks to the state mandate that has been in place for almost 20 years. Just ask my parents, my inlaws, great grandparents, my brothers and my husband how thankful they are for the state mandate.

The politician who is responsible for the bill that would repeal the state mandate googled me / him / bill and found this blog. He even left a comment.


This is politics; I am opposing his bill. I am done with IVF. I will not be doing it again and the repeal of the state mandate would not affect me directly. It will affect the infertile couples that will be walking behind me. What would you do if your state mandated IVF and then someone came along and wanted to repeal it?



Click here to view the report he is referencing and is the basis for his bill to repeal the IVF mandate. It does not prove that insurance rates would drop if his bill is successful.



I am indeed a powerful lobbying special interest group; I am an infertiliy patient. I was not "mislead by my fertility clinic" as you state in the response. I looked up your bill here:

Some of the more productive comments that were originally left are pasted here:

1.
You said it for all of us struggling to have our own family photo album - thank you!

2.
Stick to your guns with this guy. And I cannot believe he left a comment on your blog?!? As mentioned before, contact your local news station and continue to keep this ball rolling and open the eyes and ears to everyone who could be effected by it.

3.
You go! I am from the state mandated Massachusetts and I thank goodness that we have infertility coverage. IF is emotionally devistating enough, why should it also have to stress if not ruin people financially too?

If this were happenin in my state, I would do the exact same thing you are doing!! Way to go!

4.
Anyone who thinks insurance companies will LOWER premiums if families are deprived of health care access needs to go see a doctor immediately--they must be delusional with high fever.

Anyone who thinks that not covering IVF leads to lower costs is likewise in need of medical attention. When couples with infertility have to pay tens of thousands of dollars per treatment--huge swaths of their before-tax income--we take risks. We put back three embryos instead of one, say, during IVF. We take higher levels of stimulating hormones and produce large numbers of eggs during IUI. We risk multiples, who are almost always born early and sometimes spend expensive days, weeks, and months in NICUs. NICU care is covered. These children's on going health issues are covered. That sure boosts premiums. Give us coverage, and you'll see thoughtful medical care, instead of the all-or-nothing black-jack mentality of those of us sunk deep in medical costs--and taking big tax deductions while we're at it, and that affects state coffers.

What working families can afford to buy insurance anyway, with the for-profit private companies in the mix? Perhaps we should do away with them and try a single payer plan like every other single developed country in the world. THAT will make insurance affordable, not doing away with coverage for selective medical conditions.

5.
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. I was just looking over a list of the states who mandated IF coverage yesterday, and I was so impressed with your state. Your state, like Mississippi (my state) has a bad rep in the US for being the last in many things. Just seeing your state on the list made me have more respect for your state. It would be such a shame for your state if this bill was passed. It has been proven over and over again that adding infertility coverage has not shown to have any effect on insurance costs. This rep is kidding himself if he thinks that taking away this coverage would making insurance costs go down at all. And let's not forget that infertility is a medical condition and should be treated like one.

6.
Wow. Here from LFCA and, yeah, I really cannot get beyond (a) infertility is a medical problem and should be treated like one, including of course insurance coverage -- rare though that is in -- and (b) I strongly suspect, though I don't know that it's been researched, that covering IVF does or can reduce costs by reducing the prevalence of high-order multiples (I for one would be delighted to accept insurance coverage in exchange for limits on the number of embryos transferred).

I am not fortunate enough to live in AR, but how sad that this state's forward-thinking policy on insurance coverage for infertility is being challenged.