In the closing weeks of the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump made all kinds of strange boasts and promises, but among the most striking related to, of all things, in vitro fertilization.
In fact, in mid-October, the Republican declared on Fox News that he considered himself “the father of IVF” — a bizarre claim, even by Trump standards — while conceding that he’d only learned what the medical treatment was earlier in the year. The on-air comments came on the heels of Trump telling NBC News that, in a second term, he would have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of the expensive service.
The good news for IVF proponents is that the president didn’t forget about the issue. The bad news for IVF proponents is that the Republican signed an executive order that doesn’t appear to do much. USA Today reported:
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expand access to and reduce the cost of in vitro and other fertilization treatments. The order directs his domestic policy advisers to make recommendations on how to lower costs for IVF, both for patients using health insurance and those paying out of pocket. The order signed Tuesday has no immediate impact on the cost of IVF or expanding access to reproductive treatments.
In other words, the executive order effectively directed his domestic policy team to try to think of something that would help “aggressively” lower the costs of IVF treatments.
It’s possible, I suppose, that someone in the administration will have an idea that hasn’t already been considered, but as executive orders go, this one is effectively meaningless, and it has no practical real-world effects. It’s precisely why a report in The New Republic described the executive order as “toothless.”
After the president signed the largely meaningless directive, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt published a social media item that read, “PROMISES MADE. PROMISES KEPT.” And while I understand why Team Trump would like the public to believe this, what Trump promised was a system in which either the government or insurance companies cover IVF costs — and there’s literally nothing in the new executive order that keeps that promise. At a Mar-a-Lago press conference, the president boasted, in reference to IVF policy, “I’ve been saying that we’re gonna do what we have to do. And I think that the women and families, husbands, are very appreciative of it.” The rhetoric would’ve been far more meaningful if the president had actually done something dramatic in his executive order, but that’s clearly not what happened.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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