California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 729 on Sept. 29. This bill will require large healthcare service plan contracts and disability insurance policies to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization starting July 1, 2025. 

Senate Bill 729 was authored by State Senator Caroline Menjivar. It will provide expanded insurance coverage for infertility and fertility services. 

As stated in the legislation, “The bill would revise the definition of infertility, and would remove the exclusion of in vitro fertilization from coverage.” 

Treatments for IVF or fertility care are often expensive and unaffordable for many Californians without insurance. The U.S. Health and Human Services has reported that the average cost for a single IVF treatment can be up to $20,000 without insurance. 

In September, roughly a week before Newsom signed the legislation, Republican state senators blocked a bill to provide access to IVF treatments nationally.

In Newsom’s signing message he stated, “As a national leader for increasing access to reproductive health care and protecting patients and providers, including those under assault in other states, I want to be clear that the right to fertility care and IVF is protected in California.”

Newsom is a founding member of the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, a nonpartisan coalition, and has been advocating in support of reproductive rights for many years. 

“In January of this year, we started the process of updating the state’s ‘benchmark’ plan, which will set a new standard for commercial insurance health coverage,” Newsom stated in his signing message. “The services under evaluation specifically include infertility treatment and IVF.”

The Senate bill has an implementation date of July 1, 2025 however, Newsom has requested the implementation date be changed to Jan. 1, 2026, to allow for an “evaluation of the costs and benefit design in this bill within that broader context.” The legislation can approve or deny his request. 

Bea Williams can be reached at [email protected].