Health insurance plays a large part in the lives of so many people. Whether or not a specific procedure, treatment, or form of health care is covered by your insurance company plays a big part in the choices a person makes in his or her life. A study shows that if insurance covers in vitro fertilization treatments, it will lead to fewer instances of multiple births.
Most of the time, when people think about health insurance, they are either thinking about health care options, or about money. The difference between being able to see a doctor or a specialist, and having to go without the care you require, often comes down to whether or not you can pay the medical bill for it. If your insurance company covers the treatment or procedures you need, this makes your life a whole lot easier. If the insurance won’t cover it, then you have to start making some difficult choices. When you think about it, health insurance, (or lack thereof), become intricately involved in some of the most private situations in a person’s life.
Couples who are trying to conceive, and are having difficulty, are going through an extremely emotional time. One type of fertility treatment is called in vitro fertilization. Part of this treatment involves collecting the eggs and sperm so that conception can happen outside of the body, with the help of specialists. Once this occurs, one or more embryos can be transferred into the woman’s body. This increases the chances that a pregnancy will occur, but cannot absolutely guarantee that it will. It might take more than one attempt with this treatment before it works, and that can get expensive, especially if your health insurance won’t cover IVF.
Another option is to implant several embryos at once. This could, potentially, increase the chance that a pregnancy will occur. However, it also could cause multiple births. Having one baby is expensive. The costs increase exponentially if there is more than one baby at the same time.
A study that was published in “Fertility and Sterility” finds that in states where fertility treatments were covered by health insurance, there were significantly fewer multiple births (due to in vitro fertilization). This conclusion was found after the researchers studied about 92,000 results of in vitro fertilization treatment cycles from 2006.
There are fifteen states that have health insurance that covers IVF. Couples in those states, who had health insurance, were more likely to be able to afford a second, or third attempt with IVF, because their insurance was helping them to cover the costs of the treatment. Couples whose insurance didn’t cover IVF treatments felt the need to transfer multiple embryos at one time, in order to try and avoid the expense of having to undergo more attempts at IVF treatment.
Image by Peiling Tan on Flickr