Aetna to cover IVF care for same-sex couples

Judge OKs national settlement that also requires insurer to pay $2 million in damages.

- KRISTEN HWANG

LAB STAFF prepare small petri dishes, each holding embryos, for cells to be extracted to test for viability.

Like many young girls, Mara Berton and June Higginbotham knew from an early age they wanted families and to become mothers.

But as lesbians, they were excluded from accessing the same fertility treatment insurance benefits offered to heterosexual peers.

Instead, like many other same-sex couples, Berton and Higginbotham, who live in Santa Clara County, had to pay $45,000 out of pocket to conceive while heterosexual colleagues with the same insurance plan had many of those costs covered.

“We knew it wasn't right,” Berton said in an exclusive interview with CalMatters. She joined a class-action lawsuit challenging the policy. “What we're fighting for is about family building and having kids.... It was really important to both of us, I think, that other couples not have to do this.”

Last week, in a landmark settlement, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California Haywood Gilliam Jr. approved a preliminary agreement for the lawsuit requiring Aetna to cover fertility treatments for same-sex couples — like artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization — as it does with heterosexual couples. It is the first case requiring a health insurer to apply this policy nationally across all of its enrollees. An estimated 2.8 million LGBTQ+ members will benefit, including 91,000 Californians.

Under the settlement, Aetna will also pay at least $2 million in damages to California-based members who qualify. Those who may be eligible must submit a claim by June 29.

“I truly hope that this is the first of many insurers to change their policy,” said Alison Tanner, senior litigation counsel for reproductive rights and health at the National Women’s Law Center.