Vance grilled on how to pay for it

Republican presidential running mate Sen. JD Vance offered few specifics when grilled Friday about how former President Donald Trump would pay for his new plan to require the government or private insurers to cover the cost of in vitro fertilization treatments.

“Is this an expansion of Obamacare? Is this a mandate?” CNN anchor John Berman asked the Ohio senator.

“Well, look, I think you have insurance companies that obviously are forced to cover a whole host of services,” Vance replied.

“The President explicitly said that he wants insurers to cover additional fertility treatment,” he added, blaming Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for high consumer costs more broadly.

Trump had unveiled the IVF policy in broad strokes during a campaign event in Michigan a day earlier.

“I’m announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs associated with IVF treatment,” he said.

He later told NBC News that a future Trump administration will be “paying for that treatment,” while also adding, “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”

IVF is used in the overwhelming majority of assisted reproductive procedures in cases of infertility. But it can be prohibitively expensive, ranging from $15,000 to over $30,000 for a single IVF cycle — and it takes an average 2.5 cycles to become pregnant, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology said nearly 390,000 IVF cycles were performed at its 368 member clinics in 2022, a 6% increase from the prior year.

Based on an average initial cost of $20,000 per round of IVF, either taxpayers or private insurers would be on the hook for an annual bill of nearly $8 billion under Trump’s plan.

Moreover, if IVF treatments were offered with no out-of-pocket expenses, the same way routine check-ups and mammograms are under the Affordable Care Act, there would likely be a surge in the number of patients seeking the treatment.

Trump’s embrace of IVF as a policy platform is the former president’s latest effort to court voters concerned about women’s reproductive rights.

Recent polls of the presidential race show Harris with a substantial lead over Trump among women voters.

The lead reflects a broader shift underway in the electorate since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which had protected federal abortion rights for nearly 50 years.

The majority bloc in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health…