Heather Stone Fletcher, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Pittsburgh and Washington, DC, offices, was quoted in the Bloomberg Law Daily Labor Report, in “Trump’s Expanded IVF Promise Envisions Flexibility for Employers,” by Parker Purifoy.
Following is an excerpt:
The Department of Labor is poised to encourage employers to offer standalone insurance for in-vitro fertilization by expanding exemptions to certain legal requirements in the Trump administration’s first major regulatory step toward making fertility treatments less expensive.
The move is meant to make good on President Donald Trump’s repeated vow to make fertility care—including IVF, donor eggs, and certain medications, which typically cost thousands of dollars per treatment—more accessible. However, attorneys warn the coming changes may not address the affordability and accessibility issues that have long made such care out of reach for many.
“I have not seen a lot of employers clamoring for this type of product that I think the Department of Labor is thinking about assisting,” said Heather Stone Fletcher, an attorney with Epstein Becker Green. “The other important thing, aside from the health coverage questions, is the cost of the treatments and I see that as the real barrier to access here.”…
