Nutmeg State Lawmakers Approve Fertility Treatment Mandate

SB 508 , sponsored by State Senator Gayle Slossberg, requires the coverage unless it is against the religious beliefs of an employer or individual and includes limitations regarding what type of fertility treatments are covered, how many, at what cost, and to what age, according to a  Web site statement by Slossberg. After the 27 to 7 Senate vote Tuesday, the measure now goes to the state House.

“This is a common-sense solution to a disease, an oftentimes treatable disease, affecting tens of thousands of couples right here in Connecticut,” Slossberg said in the statement. “There’s few things in life more heart-rending than the inability of a couple who are unable to reproduce, to give birth to their own offspring. It’s a very natural and understandable human desire. Now, with this bill, what we are saying to the medical community is, in a very reasonable way, use your resources as wisely as possible. This is a fiscally responsible way to improve the health care of people in our state.”

>Current Connecticut law requires insurers and HMOs to offer infertility coverage to group plan sponsors who can reject or accept it.

>The bill applies to policies delivered, issued, amended, renewed, or continued on and after October 1, 2005 that cover:

• basic hospital expenses
• basic medical-surgical expenses
• major medical expenses
• hospital or medical services, including HMOs.

>According to a Hartford Courant news report, there are an e stimated 70,000 Connecticut couples unable to conceive children.

Senator Bill Finch, an opponent, said the state should be placing a similar emphasis on finding qualified people to permanently adopt the thousands of foster children in state care. “You can create a family through adoption. We need to see how the state could convince some of the 70,000 couples to get these foster kids into loving families,” Finch said, according to the Courant. “We move adoption of bills every day, but not of children.”