University School of Law. All rights reserved. Employer-provided health insurance is the backbone of the American health care system. Approximately four of five workers in the United States rely on health insurance provided in the workplace.
Many commentators view access to health insurance as the doorway to the entire health care system.
Thus, the benefits covered in employer-provided health insurance plans significantly impact millions of Americans. While private health insurance usually covers abortion, it traditionally has not covered infertility services. Eventually, courts began interpreting insurance contracts to include infertility treatments, leading insurers to specifically exclude infertility treatments from coverage. In response, a few states have passed mandated benefit laws requiring coverage of some or all infertility services. These exclusions are significant because abortion and infertility services can be quite expensive for the millions of infertile couples seeking some sort of infertility treatment and the millions of women who have abortions each year.