Family Building Act 2009
I snagged this from ryeth over on LJ. I also posted the links on Facebook, so I apologize for the duplicate “entries”.
Legislation was introduced by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) which would require insurers to cover infertility treatment.
As of April 8, 2009, the Family Building Act of 2009 (H.R. 697) has the following Co-Sponsors in the House of Representatives:
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY)
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY)
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
Rep. David Price (D-NC)
Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA)
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)
Don’t see your Representative on the list above? Take less than five minutes and send an email to your representative and let them know how important this legislation is to you and ask them to co-sponsor the Family Building Act of 2009.
To read the bill go HERE.
To contact your rep. and ask them to co-sponsor this bill go HERE.
I was unaware of this bill until I saw ryeth’s post. This is something that Jon and I strongly believe in. As most of you have followed along for the last 2+ years, Jon and I have been diagnosed with male factor infertility. Our only option for conceiving a child is through IVF with ICSI. This is somewhat of a costly procedure that our insurance does not cover. Unfortunately, we’re also in a state that doesn’t believe is state mandated fertility treatments. So we’re pretty much out of luck until we can manage to save (yeah right, not in this economy right now!) $10,000 for 1 round of treatment.
There are those out there that don’t believe in this, saying that fertility issues are God’s way of natural selection (As evident with a comment to my link post on Facebook). Like ryeth, I don’t believe the entire cost of fertility treatment should be covered, but some assistance, any assistance by the insurance companies would be highly beneficial to people trying to start a family.
Please take a moment and look over the proposed bill and send a comment to your representative!
Originally published at www.theworldofhelen.com. Please leave any comments there.