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Join RESOLVE’s leadership team for an in-depth look at what it takes to pass pro-family legislation, protect IVF, and what we’re up against.
HOSTS
President & CEO, Barb Collura
Chief Engagement Officer, Betsy Campbell
Chief External Affairs Officer, Rebecca Flick
ABOUT RESOLVE
RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association is the largest non-profit patient advocacy organization in the country focusing on increasing access to all family building options through insurance coverage and policy changes as well as protecting fertility care like IVF from legislation.
Hi, and welcome to Infertility Discourse, a podcast from RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association. I'm one of your hosts, Rebecca Flick, and here with me today, Barb Collura and Betsy Campbell. Good morning.
Barb Collura:Good morning.
Rebecca Flick:So we are at episode 8 and we are titling this episode Get Up, Stand Up, a little nod to Bob Marley, and we want this episode to be a little bit about voter education.
Rebecca Flick:Barb, what do we mean by voter education?
Barb Collura:Well, first of all, good morning, and I'm so excited that we've made it to episode 8. Hi. A little little bit of celebration there. First of all, when you think about what we can do as a 501c3 organization, if you've listened to this podcast, we've talked about this a few times, but it's worth repeating. We as a 501c3 have certain rules around what we can and can't do as it relates to campaigns and elections and candidates and what we can do is voter education.
Barb Collura:So we can ask voters to, we can pose questions to voters that then they could ask to their, candidates. We, as as an organization that has specific issues that we care about, we can make sure that our issues are clearly articulated so that voters can look at those and say, gee, what does an organization like RESOLVE care about? I wonder how the candidates that I'm gonna be asked to vote for feel about those things. So it's a way to ensure that voters know what we care about and potentially how they can evaluate the candidates in front of them.
Rebecca Flick:And I know we hear a lot about the IVF issue from the presidential candidates this year, which has been very interesting to follow, but it's not just the federal government that can take IVF on as an issue. It's also state governments. And, Betsy, tell our listeners a little bit about how state elected officials, can impact our community.
Betsy Campbell:Right. They can impact our community a lot. You've heard us talk a lot about expanding access to care and now protecting access to care. But for years years now, we've been trying to pass IVF insurance laws and fertility preservation, basically comprehensive fertility insurance laws. That's something, a state legislature can absolutely do.
Betsy Campbell:It doesn't cover everybody in a state, for example, self insured employers, the really large insurers, over 500 employees are exempt from state laws. So, they can voluntarily add these benefits or, you know, we could pass, a federal law. So expanding access to care is definitely part of the purview of, states because there are state insurance laws that need to be, changed in most cases to cover IVF. And then when it comes to protecting IVF, we kind of live that in Alabama where the state acted very quickly to resume IVF care. It's just a band aid.
Betsy Campbell:We still have a lot of work to do, but you can see that, you know, the standard of care for IVF needs to be protected in states, just like they can pass insurance laws. They can also pass regulations that could interfere with the standard of care.
Rebecca Flick:So if you're listening to this and you're thinking about, you know, how you vote and why you vote, whether it's presidential election or it's local elections, this might be the first time you're actually thinking, like, how do the candidates that I look to supporting stand on IVF IVF as an issue. And I think this is kind of the first time in our history where it's been an issue at the federal level, and and talked about so prominently. But, Barb, tell us a little bit, you know, what's at stake here in this election?
Barb Collura:Well, it's an interesting time, certainly. And as Betsy shared, we've been not only fighting to protect IVF, but we've been fighting to expand access to care for many years. So quite honestly, who is in office at the state level, those state legislators, governors, and then of course who's sitting in Congress are really have been really important to us for many years. So, it's it's an interesting time that we're just now kind of thinking about this because of all the attention, as you said, Rebecca, on IVF. So we know that in the United States, 2%, it's actually a little higher than 2% of all the births in the United States are a result of IVF.
Barb Collura:Now that means that 2 out of every 100 births is a result of IVF. That's pretty that's that's a lot. I I will have to tell you though that other countries, it's a lot higher. Yeah. And so while people go, wow, that's amazing.
Barb Collura:It it technically, and we'll talk about this on a future future podcast, it should be much, much higher. But we have a lot of problems in our country with access as we know so that that's what keeps it actually a little low. But this is a medical treatment that needs to be more widespread. We need to see more access for it and your federal and state lawmakers have a lot of say in that. So a lot's at stake.
Barb Collura:We, we also feel that now is a time with so much focus on IVF that we're very concerned that there might be, if you will, attempts to make it less accessible and that could come in many ways in many forms. So we need as a community, as a country, to care about this issue and to look to your elected officials to help protect and expand. And the way you do that is by voting, and the way you do that is by evaluating the candidates and making sure they align with your beliefs and values.
Betsy Campbell:I actually love what you said. I think, Rebecca, you came up with the tagline for this podcast, right? What's at stake? It's all about family. Did I get that right?
Rebecca Flick:Yep. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah.
Rebecca Flick:You know, it is healthcare, and it's also, family building. So, it's, you know, it's, it's an important issue and people really need to understand when they hear, you know, a campaign speech or they read an article or they see a social media clip and they see a candidate saying, I support IVF. We support IVF. What should supporting IVF look like? I think that's the first question you need to think to yourself.
Rebecca Flick:Like, it's enough to say, oh, we support it. I support it. But what does support mean and what does support IVF mean to resolve? Who wants to take that on?
Barb Collura:Yeah. Well, I've been I don't know. I've been talking to a lot of reporters and legislators and and so forth about this, and and it's just very simple. It's quite honestly very simple. If you wanna pass legislation, I look at it and I say, does it make, Betsy's gonna love this, does it make it easier to get care?
Barb Collura:Does it improve the health and safety? And does it improve outcomes? Now when I look at piece of legislation, I ask myself is this particular legislation creating any barriers? Is it leaving somebody out? Is it, is it gonna make it harder?
Barb Collura:Number 1, to get care. Number 2, are we gonna have better health outcomes as a result of this? In other words, does this really make it better for the patient? Maybe, you know, there's so many pieces of legislation that I can think of that would absolutely make it better and have better outcomes. And then are we putting in place things that are going to be onerous and difficult, expensive, and have no impact on outcomes and no impact on health?
Barb Collura:Then they're worthless, They're unnecessary, and we do not need them. We don't need legislation just for legislation.
Rebecca Flick:Right. For the sake of. Right.
Betsy Campbell:I think a lot of people don't realize. I mean, there have been numerous studies that show states with IVF insurance have lower rates of multiple births, and that means you're having healthier pregnancies, singleton prep pregnancy. So you've got healthier pregnant people and healthier babies. So when we talk about, healthy outcomes, it's for the patient and for the offspring. And we know that IVF insurance accomplishes that.
Rebecca Flick:But we also know, you know, at at the same the same way you consume your media, whether it's TV or social media, there's a lot that people get wrong when they talk about this issue, whether it's a reporter, someone on TV, or the candidate themselves. You know, what are are some of the myths that we are hearing, especially with lawmakers, what they think about IVF? Anybody have one that comes to mind?
Barb Collura:Oh my gosh. There's so many. I think, oh, there's there's some that recently that I've seen where it's legislation and, god, I just saw this, where somebody said, here's why I don't support the right to IVF Act. That's the bill that that we've been promoting and and supporting in Congress. And he said because it doesn't protect health care workers who don't wanna do IVF.
Barb Collura:And I thought to myself, what are they talking about? What are they saying? And they're they're actually saying that there are people they think that doctors and nurses and embryologists are gonna are gonna are gonna go through 4 years of med school or 3 years of med school. Right? Betsy, 3 years of med school.
Barb Collura:4 years. 4 years of med school. Residency. 4 to, 4 years of OBGYN residency and then do a 3 year fellowship in reproductive endocrinology. I've lost count now how many years that is after college.
Barb Collura:And then they're gonna say, I was somebody was forcing me to do IVF against my beliefs. Okay, come on. Okay. Yes. That that's nonsense.
Barb Collura:Okay. So that's the kind of stuff. There's also myths out there that the only reason people do IVF is because they want to engineer a designer baby with, like certain color eyes, certain color hair, certain height. You know, they want I I don't I okay.
Barb Collura:This just this doesn't happen.
Betsy Campbell:I heard something so insulting that it's been referred to like build a bear workshop. It's
Barb Collura:Oh, stop it.
Betsy Campbell:Possibly yes. The most
Barb Collura:Who said that?
Betsy Campbell:I heard it on a call in a state where we're working really hard to to to protect access to care. So anyway. Yeah. Okay. You wanna know?
Betsy Campbell:It was Alabama. So
Rebecca Flick:There it is.
Betsy Campbell:Yeah. Yep.
Rebecca Flick:And, also too, I think success rates. I think whether or not this is about legislation, even just generally when we talk about IVF, the clarity around success rates is really important. And I think sometimes the way the general public talks about infertility and IVF, there's, there's a need to understand that this is a course of treatment. So when you go to see an, you know, IVF specialist or reproductive endocrinologist, you know, they're looking at this as a course of treatment, and that might mean 2 or 3 rounds of IVF in order to have a successful pregnancy. And it's not a one and done.
Rebecca Flick:Policies should not be written and insurance laws should not be written around just offering one cycle because the success rates for one cycle are are low, but the success rates for a treatment, a course of treatments are relatively strong. So anything you can do to combat that misinformation out there is important.
Barb Collura:Here's here's something then that I, first of all, totally agree with that and oh by the way this information is publicly available. The federal government, Congress passed a law many years ago that said IVF cycles have to be reported to the CDC. Every clinic has to report their IVF outcomes and a whole bunch of data to the CDC every year and then guess what the CDC does? They turn around and they produce publicly available reports on their website. Do you know how many times Betsy and I are pulling our hair out because somebody's done some cost study or some other kind of study and they don't even know that CDC data is available, like the federal government.
Barb Collura:I just saw this data and I shared this with Betsy, and Betsy you probably saw this last week because I know you you got a presentation on this. So I was at a briefing on Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago. It was, hosted by a coalition called fertility advocacy coalition for technology or FACT, FACT, and they, hosted a briefing for staffers on Capitol Hill and I attended it and there was some data that compared the success of IVF in the United States with other countries. This was fascinating, and this is a misconception, Rebecca, that the media and a lot of legislators have started saying they've started saying, gosh, we should look at what other countries do like You know, you've heard Italy.
Barb Collura:Germany, you know, the Italy, and, you know, so on and so forth. So this graph, I'm not gonna show it, but it compared the success rates of IVF in the United States to Japan, Italy, Australia, France, Germany, Canada, Spain, China, the UK. Okay. A lot of countries. Our success rates in the United States, live birth rates was the highest out of all those countries.
Barb Collura:Okay? And countries where they have a lot of regulation, oh my gosh, the success rates were so much lower than United States. Now I don't know if there's an exact correlation between a lot of regulation and and outcomes, but let's not look to some of these countries to see how they're doing it because as it turns out, our success rates are better than all of them.
Betsy Campbell:The word regulation sounds good. Right? Wow. You wanna protect the patient, and there are lots of regulations already with IVF. These are sort of unnecessary regulations that actually interfere with the standard of care.
Betsy Campbell:So I think we have to put, regulations in in quotes because it's really going beyond anything that you would, you know Yeah. Do for any kind of health care.
Barb Collura:No. I know we're talking about voter education and we've kind of gotten a little off track, Rebecca, and you're probably thinking, oh my This is not
Rebecca Flick:I was gonna reel you back in.
Barb Collura:This is gonna be so hard for people to think, but but I think it's good to just share some of this because they're gonna people are gonna be like, oh, yeah. I've heard my lawmaker say that, or I've heard a candidate say that, and and I just I hope that this has helped.
Rebecca Flick:I think too, people need to understand, maybe they say health and safety. Well, health and safety is a political term for regulations. So, you know, do your research, you know, research your candidates that are running for office at the state level, in the federal level, and see where they are on the record. You can also look, especially in Congress to see where members of Congress voted on key issues that are important to our community. We have an entire section on our website called our issues.
Rebecca Flick:We just added some new content called Champion IVF, your guide to the issues. So take a look at that. They will all be in the show notes. Barb, I promise they will be in the show notes. I've I've already listed these in the show notes.
Rebecca Flick:So, but you could do your own research about this, but there's also some education that you can do with friends and family, especially if some if you're someone that works in this space, if you are a healthcare provider that provides IVF, if you work for a company that supports IVF treatment, or if you're a person experiencing infertility, if you care about this issue, you can help educate others, in your space. And we have 5 tips to do that. So we're gonna kind of tackle tackle these 1 by 1. But this is also a very important part of our mission. It's Barb's favorite part of our mission, which is inspire to act.
Rebecca Flick:So we hope that this podcast inspires you to act in some way, especially at this this critical time in our our legislative history. So we believe that sharing personal stories is one of the most effective ways that you can destigmatize issues around IVF care. And that personal story could be yours. That personal story could be someone that you know, or close to, or you could simply share personal stories that you see online and and the emotion that comes with an infertility diagnosis or just having barriers, whether you're part of the LGBTQ plus community or an unpartnered individual trying to build their family, your story matters. All of those stories matter.
Rebecca Flick:So when you take time to share a personal story, whether it's your own or someone else who's chosen to share their story, it makes it real for the person that you're trying to educate. We're gonna talk about a little bit about the second area, which is focus on accessibility and affordability. And, Betsy, why will you never hear RESOLVE say IVF is expensive?
Betsy Campbell:Right. That drives me nuts. And you would never say that about hip replacement surgery or heart bypass surgery, because guess what? They're covered by insurance. The only reason why anyone would say it's expensive is because it isn't covered by insurance.
Betsy Campbell:So, yeah, that that one really drives me nuts. It's the out of pocket costs make it unaccessible.
Rebecca Flick:So, yes, so so when you're out there talking about it, so say it's really expensive because, again, relatively, as a course of treatment, it's on par with a lot of things that people don't realize because it's covered. You know, I think addressing the misconceptions, and we talked a little bit about that just a couple of minutes ago, you know, be confident in being able to dispel those myths saying, you know, people don't use IVF to design a baby. You know, people are not selfish who want to use IVF care to grow their family. You can use our tools on our website, but also just really speak from your heart and make sure that you are out there spreading the good information. We also wanna frame IVF with a broader context of reproductive health.
Rebecca Flick:So this is about being able to choose when and how you want to grow your family. And that might make some people uncomfortable, but it is it is the truth. There's a lot of health equity issues with IVF care. There's a lot of reproductive justice issues, and it all fall falls under that umbrella of reproductive health care. Is there anything else, Barb, you wanted to add to that?
Barb Collura:I think when when you hear the word words reproductive health in our country, you immediately say you immediately think abortion. And I like how you've included that here because, we are reproductive health, but so are things like miscarriage and and and stillbirth. But you also have a lot of the causes of infertility from PCOS to, uterine fibroids to endometriosis and, and the like. And so you've got so much under that reproductive health banner and of course you have pregnancy and delivery and menstruation and menopause. So there's there's a lot tied up in there and, I think when you think about fertility and infertility and then reproduction, that's what we care about.
Barb Collura:And so I love that it's under this big banner of reproductive health and let's, and as a country, broaden our thinking when we hear that that term and and and think more broadly. And it's not just women, it's men as well.
Rebecca Flick:You read my mind. I was gonna say, let's not forget about male factor infertility and the and the men who are part of the process. And I think, there's a real opportunity for men to engage in this conversation, especially around this election, that they could be part of a couple who is experiencing infertility. And while they might not physically go through the IVF treatment, there are many men out there that watch their their spouse or their partners deal with the medical side, and they should be speaking up for this as well. It's not just on the, you know, the burden of the the women or the people with the uterus to take on this this topic.
Rebecca Flick:And, of course, with anything, any kind of political dialogue, you wanna make sure you engage with empathy and respect. And it it might be hard. It might be hard, especially if you're in the midst of infertility treatments or have dealt with it and has left a real scar, on your life, but still try to to remain empathetic and listen to the other person, and and hopefully that person is is listening to you as well and, showing empathy.
Barb Collura:Well, I love that last one because it's we don't need to get, you know, personal or angry or bitter or defensive. And I and it's as Betsy, you know, this is this is about building families. This is about letting people build their families and, letting them do that in a way that is right for them at the right time and in the right way, but let's make sure that we've made it as easy as possible for people to get that care and that depending on what their what their needs are that those things are available to them. So, yeah, I I think, you know, again recapping, sharing personal stories, focus on accessibility and affordability, address misconceptions, promote comprehensive reproductive health, and engage with empathy and respect. Those are kind of 5 tips as you, think about this and and talk to others.
Barb Collura:And, you know, voter education is not just yourself feeling like you've done your due diligence, it's also thinking about how do you potentially influence others and using your story.
Rebecca Flick:Yeah. And the most, the easiest thing you can do is share information that RESOLVE puts out there whether it's through email or social media. You know, we're a trusted source. And if you feel like you might not have the bandwidth to absorb all this and then talk about it widely, you could definitely share, and we definitely appreciate that. So we are are recording this, and I think we're at 30 days prior to the election.
Rebecca Flick:So it's a reminder to vote. Whether you vote in person or by mail or early vote, vote. And we will see what happens with elections across the country and the White House and Congress. And once we kind of identify the the landscape, we will have our priority set and be ready for a new year. All right.
Rebecca Flick:We have not done a reserve the right to get smarter in a bit because we threw out a couple shorter episodes because we had some really important updates. Does anyone have anything they wanna share? Something that you got smarter about?
Barb Collura:Well, I this isn't really work related, but I've had an opportunity to visit my son at college and I'm actually recording right now from where he lives in Savannah, Georgia. And we we have a lot on our plate to resolve and we we need to get a lot done and there's a lot of deadlines and a lot of things coming up. But I think for me, I had an opportunity on Friday to just leave early for a few hours to spend the afternoon with him, and I did that. And I actually had to think about it. Isn't that sad?
Barb Collura:And so I feel like we reserve the right to get smarter about our priorities in life. And I was like Take a break. I realized the pile of work was still there. The deadlines were still there, but that time I got to spend with him, I can't get back. So I just I'm preaching to myself more than anything, but I think it's important, to be always aware of what is important in life and being okay with saying, hey, this is how I'm gonna spend my time the next few hours.
Rebecca Flick:Yes. Well, we are all very happy that you got that time with your son.
Betsy Campbell:Tony.
Rebecca Flick:Yeah. Tony. A little shout out to Tony. Tony.
Betsy Campbell:I remember from high school.
Rebecca Flick:It's hard to imagine. He is in college. Well, thank you for joining us today. Again, vote. This is issue, has been brought to you by the year of IVF.
Rebecca Flick:As we like to say, 2024 is the year of IVF. Alright. Thank you for listening, and head over to our website for, the links to what we talked about today, championing IVF, your guide to the issues. And there's a really important button in the upper right corner of our website, and that's Barb's favorite button.
Barb Collura:Because it says donate. And we are so grateful for people who donate, for we're so grateful for people who, choose to donate every month. I always talk about, you know, your your Starbucks coffee and it's it's pumpkin time and those do you realize how much markup they have on those pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks? It's a lot. And so maybe just one less, this October or November, and you, you decide I'm gonna give that amount per month to resolve.
Barb Collura:And we it's we we call you a monthly or sustaining donor, and we're so grateful for you because we can really count on on on that revenue and know that we have it. We are in the midst of a fight for families campaign right now. We've talked about this a little bit. You're gonna see it on our website. You're gonna see information about about how to get involved.
Barb Collura:We have some cool ways, that you can donate and participate and maybe even ask your friends and family to support RESOLVE in your honor. So lots of lots of cool things going on right now.
Rebecca Flick:Alright. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you soon.
Barb Collura:Bye bye.