The Trump administration is taking steps to create a pathway for employers to offer an additional fertility insurance package to employees as part of their elective benefits plans, similar to vision and dental insurance, but for in vitro fertilization and other assisted fertility methods.
President Donald Trump announced the new rule from the Oval Office on Monday as part of a Mother’s Day program outlining various policies on maternal health and federal programs to help families, including “Trump Accounts” investments for newborn babies.
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Trump said the new employer-sponsored fertility coverage policy will be “a major help for American moms that will result in more beautiful American babies.”
The move from the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services follows Trump’s executive order from February 2025 that was meant to make IVF more accessible to the 1-in-7 families struggling with infertility.
Daniel Aronowitz, the assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security at the Department of Labor, told reporters on Monday the goal is to create new, “flexible benefit options that employers can offer on a voluntary basis.”
“This is about empowering families,” Aronowitz said. “It is about recognizing the emotional, physical, and financial burdens that Americans face when they’re trying to conceive. It is about making sure that starting a family, one of the most foundational aspects of the American dream, is not determined by financial circumstances alone.”
Assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF can cost tens of thousands of dollars per attempted pregnancy, but only roughly a quarter of employers offer IVF and infertility management, according to a 2025 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.
The rule would make fertility care a new category of limited expected benefits, which is a type of insurance voluntarily offered by employers as part of their benefits packages. According to the Department of Labor’s press release, limited expected benefits are generally exempt from market reforms under Obamacare regulations.
Benefits would be capped at a combined lifetime maximum of up to $120,000 for the enrollee and their beneficiaries, adjusted for inflation after 2028.
A senior Trump administration official told the Washington Examiner on Monday the administration is “moving expeditiously” to ensure plans are available for employers to choose from in time for the health insurance plan year starting in January 2027.
The effort also appears to avoid the worst fears of anti-abortion advocates with moral objections to IVF by not mandating that all employers cover assisted fertility through Obamacare regulations.
More stringent anti-abortion advocacy groups have put pressure on the White House to back away from his campaign promise to promote IVF. They reject IVF on the grounds that all embryos created in the process are fully human and deserve legal personhood rights, which ethically conflicts with the practice of discarding or indefinitely freezing unused embryos.
IVF became a critical issue during the 2024 presidential election when the Alabama Supreme Court granted personhood rights to embryos in a medical malpractice case in which embryos were accidentally destroyed without the consent of the parents.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruling resulted in hospitals in the state suspending IVF treatment access until the state legislature intervened to pass a new law revoking personhood rights for embryos created in IVF.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) praised Trump during the Oval Office event for intervening at the time to push the Alabama legislature. She said the new Department of Labor benefits plan is “another example of promises made, promises kept.”
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“We are thrilled to support mothers everywhere,” Britt said.
When asked about Trump’s promises for an IVF coverage mandate, senior administration officials told reporters that the proposed limited benefit rule is only “one piece in a multifaceted approach.”
