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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.
Hello, and welcome to Infertility Discourse, a podcast from RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association. I am one of your hosts, Barb Collura. You're probably wondering, where is Rebecca Flick? She is always the voice. She has that beautiful radio voice, DJ voice.
Barb Collura:I do not. So sadly, we're gonna miss our Rebecca today. She is not able to join us, but I have a really great show ahead because we have two experts who are here to break down the state advocacy landscape. We are recording this in early April of 2025. So there's quite a bit of state advocacy left in 2025.
Barb Collura:We are not over. This is not a final, but it's a check-in. It's an opportunity to hear what's going on, how people can get involved, where advocacy has really made a difference. And also what are some challenges maybe we're facing? So let's just jump right in.
Barb Collura:I am thrilled to have Alise Powell with us. Say hello, Alise.
Alise Powell:Hi, everyone.
Barb Collura:And Alise is RESOLVE's Director of Government Affairs and works on both federal and state advocacy. And we have a very, very, very special guest, another incredible expert on all things public policy and advocacy.
Barb Collura:Please introduce yourself, friend.
Jessie Losch:Thanks, Barb. I feel like I need to practice my radio voice just to match up with Rebecca. Hi, everyone. I'm Jesse Losch. I'm the Director of Government Affairs at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. And I have the incredible privilege of getting to work with Alise on a lot of these state issues.
Barb Collura:Fantastic. So I thought maybe we would, if it's okay with you, maybe we could start with any wins that we've already had in 2025, maybe go into then maybe some of the bills that are still active, both good and bad. And then if we have time, we can maybe dissect a couple of things that maybe didn't quite go our way in this season of state legislation. So what do you think? Do we have any wins?
Barb Collura:You got anything to share with our listeners?
Alise Powell:I mean, see, this is how we work in college and we finish it. As the quote goes, we finish each other sandwiches.
Barb Collura:And you know, I will do better. Rebecca would have said, Hey, Jesse. And I didn't. I just left it up there.
Jessie Losch:But there's like advocacy. I'm going to kick it to Alise. Alise, take some of our listeners on a wind tour.
Alise Powell:Sure. So I can start with Georgia. We were just talking about that before we started the call. So Georgia, I believe, is still kind of working through the process, but will eventually sign into law an IVF protection bill. It's on the governor's desk now. So that is a surprising win that was not expected for us, and we have been tracking it for a little while now and are excited that, you know, the right and the access or the right to access IVF in Georgia is now protected or will be protected soon in law.
Barb Collura:And you know what's really cool about that particular bill is that it was really championed by advocates in Georgia, And they did the heavy lifting and got it over the finish line. It was fantastic to watch that whole thing go forward. Jesse, any other wins so far that we are aware of?
Jessie Losch:Well, I want to stay in Georgia just really because of what you said, Barb. Is also a fertility preservation mandate that is currently still moving in Georgia. And I think what is so impressive and empowering about that is groups of stakeholders on the ground work together so beautifully. There was so much communication between patient advocates, between REIs, between nurses, between lawyers. We had one point we had an email chain that was folks from Emory, Quad A, a patient advocacy group, some lobbyists, some legislators, and everybody was just-
Barb Collura:And doctors and clinics.
Jessie Losch:Yeah. Memory, yes, sharing information and clinics as well. And the openness and willingness to work together, I think really is the reason why we've had these, as Alise said, pretty surprising wins. Because I will say, I'm our office pessimist usually and I had no faith that either anything positive would happen in Georgia or that these positive things would not be sort of co-opted. But I really credit the advocates on the ground who made sure that at every step of the way, they were all working as one and really using their individual expertises, I think to like amplify and augment each other's efforts.
Barb Collura:Yeah, fantastic. I would say one of the wins, even though it's kind of an odd win, we know of several opportunities so far in 2025 for people to advocate with their state lawmakers through, like, organized advocacy days. I know there's one in Maine, I think, tomorrow that our friends at All Pass Family Building are working on. We hosted an advocacy day in Washington State, which is in Olympia, and in Minnesota, in St. Paul.
Barb Collura:I know there's, maybe you two can fill me in on maybe Oregon and Nevada. I mean, there's been Michigan. I mean, there's been a lot of opportunities this year where people have advocated collectively with state lawmakers.
Jessie Losch:It's such a great point. Also want to add, I feel like you guys are letting me talk about states that I usually am less than enthusiastic about in positive ways. Like what is this even? This magic of RESOLVE, but Missouri, we had advocates in Missouri, I really want to shout out Aileen Portugal, who's one of our last year's primed graduates, who somehow I mean, maybe doesn't sleep ever. But what they decided to do in Missouri, again, just the power of advocacy and the power of knowing your own state landscape so well, is rather than introduce a bill, they had an educational session at the Capitol.
Jessie Losch:So they set up tables, they knew that this was not the safest or most receptive year or environment for bill introduction. But they also realize that that doesn't mean you do nothing. You meet with your educators. Danielle brought her IVF baby. So it was like a come be swayed by pastries and cute kids and learn about why this is so important so that you're setting the foundation for further legislation.
Jessie Losch:It was, I never get to say nice things about Missouri. In fact, this might be the only nice thing I've ever said about Missouri, and it is purely due to the advocates on the ground.
Barb Collura:So we've had already some excitement in 2025 with that win in Georgia. Lots and lots of opportunities for advocates to talk to lawmakers. I want to now switch gears a little bit and hear from both of you of bills that are still in play. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about how state legislatures work, but there's a lot of timing that takes place. Bills are introduced. They have to hit a certain point in the process by a certain date. Otherwise, they die. And we certainly had that happen to some of our bills, but many are still alive. And so I want to start, if we could, maybe Alise, you can tell us about some of the IVF insurance mandate bills. So these are bills that would expand access to care in states. If you know of any states that still have IVF insurance mandate bills still alive here in the April.
Alise Powell:Yes. There are two bills that RESOLVE is working in coalition with that are still alive. One in Oregon that ASRM is kind of leading the charge in, so I'll let Jesse talk a little bit more about it. But super excited that that is still in the works. We've had to shift strategies a little bit from the house to the senate side, which is, you know, totally normal.
Alise Powell:And I'm really excited that we've got a champion on the senate side that's really excited about the our issue and really, you know, going to be a champion for us as it moves through the senate side.
Barb Collura:What about what's the other state?
Alise Powell:The other state is Nevada. We are just getting started in Nevada. We've had a couple of hearings and, advocacy, meetups, within the state, folks on the ground there.
Alise Powell:We're working with the Nevada fertility advocates who are doing a great job of getting their sharing their stories and meeting with the champions there on the ground. The senate majority leader is actually the bill sponsor, which is huge.
Alise Powell:What? Oh my gosh.
Alise Powell:I know. In terms of, you know, the control that we have over the bill and making sure that we can, you know, get this moving along in Nevada. This is our first try in Nevada, so we're excited.
Barb Collura:And and Jesse, we'll get to you if there's anything more in Oregon. I also know there's some I think there's some fertility preservation only bills that might still be alive as well working their way. Maybe I'm wrong, but I know there were a number of states. Some of those have died out. I think Hawaii is still hanging on by a thread. I don't know.
Alise Powell:Hawaii is hanging on by a thread.
Barb Collura:Yeah, hanging on by a thread. So we love to just stay in it till the very end and never say it's over, right, until it's over. Jesse, any other positive mandate bills or things that you want to share that you know about?
Jessie Losch:I think the don't say it's over till it's over applies really well in Oregon where today would be the last day that we had to pass the Senate. Again, I had no faith. And yesterday, our Senate sponsor managed to squeak us through.
Barb Collura:What?
Jessie Losch:I know, gosh, shout out to Senator Deb Patterson, but I think it really shows that even when you are mired in doubts, you do whatever you you know, all of us and that's, in Oregon, we have incredible patient advocates. We have immediate past president of ASRM, Dr. Amato. And we all just felt that even if it wasn't going to happen, we would do what ever we needed to do. So we could say both to ourselves and to our sponsors, you know what? We left nothing. What's the expression? Nothing on the table.
Barb Collura:Yeah, no, exactly.
Jessie Losch:And in this case, now we still have a shot.
Barb Collura:Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, let's shift gears here. Are there any bills still in play that we're a little concerned about or maybe a lot concerned about that we want to talk about?
Jessie Losch:There are a lot.
Barb Collura:Jesse, don't. There's a lot?
Jessie Losch:No. Well, okay. So Alise and I, I feel like are really good at playing. It's not like good cop, bad cop. It's like good bill, bad bill. Sometimes I'll be like, I'll get on a coalition call and be like, there's no, every state is, is on fire. And Alise will be like, actually, not all of them.
Barb Collura:So is it fair to say, Alise is the glass is half full and maybe Jesse, you're not as...
Jessie Losch:Not as full.
Barb Collura:Not as full. Yeah.
Jessie Losch:Okay. Rather than shouting out all of these bad bills because nobody wants to listen to eighteen hours of, yeah. I think what is concerning because it's new this session are these so called what have been called trip bills, which are targeted regulation of IVF providers. They're based on-
Barb Collura:Trap bills.
Jessie Losch:Trap laws, right?
Alise Powell:Which are targeted regulation of abortion providers. And those really set the those are the draft, the model for these trip bills. And so what that looks like is personal language. But more often, it looks like overregulation of IVF providers and clinics. We saw a number of them, but we saw three really egregious ones that are I think more concerning because they're clearly model bills, you know, they are copy and paste bills that somebody can, a legislator can take and introduce.
Jessie Losch:And once even, so none of these bills have passed so far, which is amazing. But once these bills are introduced, they are read into the floor, they are, you know, available as it were. And so it makes it a lot easier for them to be seen as sort of standard and-
Barb Collura:Normal, normal.
Jessie Losch:Exactly. And when they're not just like, you know, I think it is another thing that we are seeing right now. There are personhood, total abortion with personal language and criminalization bills introduced. It's a lot easier for people to say, we don't support that. But once those bills are on the floor, anything a little bit less than that looks normal, looks moderate, looks acceptable.
Barb Collura:Especially when they say, hey, this is all for health and safety reasons. This is, you know, patient safety. Hear this all the time. It's funny because well, not funny. I mean, we knew this was all gonna happen, all of all of us.
Barb Collura:I mean, I remember I gave a talk to some leaders in our field in the fall of 2024, and I had a slide that was TRAP laws. What is a TRAP law? And it was about targeted restrictions on abortion providers, and I said, this is what we're going to see in our field. I didn't use the word the Trip law, but the point of it is that we knew, we all knew this was going to be happening. In fact, we know of an organization, an anti-IVF organization, who's developed a lot of these model bills.
Barb Collura:And I was talking, Alise and I were talking to our friends in Alabama, what was this about three or four weeks ago, and the same exact bill had been introduced, I believe in Texas, and there was somebody there literally shopping it around trying to find a legislator in Alabama to introduce this model regulation bill. So this is what we're going to see. The fact that we've only seen three of them is not an indication that they're going away. It's a start, and we're gonna, we're gonna see more and more of this. So let's move on to some of those bills that maybe didn't get across the finish line in 2025 that we were supporting, that we wanted to see move.
Barb Collura:Because now we've shared some of our wins and some of the good bills that are still out there, some bad bills that we're still keeping an eye on. EliAlisese and Jesse, I'm always the person who wants to learn something, Right? What's the lesson learned? And sometimes it's just sometimes y'all just say to me, Barb, it's just politics or Barb, it's just the budget or or something. But yet, you know, I I wanna feel like we've gotta we've got to take something away.
Barb Collura:I know some things didn't go our way in Washington State. They didn't go our way in Minnesota. We had IVF insurance bills in both of those states. Alise and Jesse, any overarching lessons learned or things that you wanna share? Because we have amazing advocates in both of those states and in other places where where where we have all kinds of bills activity. But I just want to make sure that these advocates know they worked so hard and they did everything right. And I want to just see what perspective you guys have on any lessons learned. Jesse or Alise, go ahead.
Alise Powell:I'll say for Minnesota. I'll let Jesse speak to Washington. But for Minnesota, I think hearing from the advocates after we had our advocacy day there in early February, I think everyone there was super glad and very surprised that all of the members that they met with, everyone was really well educated about the issue and really supportive. And so there it's not for lack of support amongst the legislators that our bill in Minnesota was has not been able to advance. It's really due to, as you said, you know, state budget issues.
Alise Powell:And also the politics in Minnesota have been really wonky this year. I think, you know, the balance in both chambers has been kind of in play. Yeah. And so it's just been really challenging for not just our insurance mandate bill, but other healthcare related bills. Anything that requires a cost increase has really not been able to move forward.
Alise Powell:There's real budget challenges there, and it's just really unfortunate that the politics and the budget issues kind of conflated and compounded against us. But it's not for lack of support for our issue. I met with a couple of members from both sides of the aisle, and both of them were very supportive of the issue and had personal connections and really understood the impact that passing an infertility mandate, insurance mandate, would have on Minnesotans.
Barb Collura:So what I'm hearing is we needed to show up, we needed to advocate. We had no way to predict all of the ins and outs and the budget challenges. And I believe in both the House and the Senate in Minnesota, we had bipartisan co-sponsors on the bill. So it certainly wasn't a problem there. So a lot of times, not a lot of times, sometimes we do everything right and it's just not going to happen because of politics and things going on.
Barb Collura:Jesse, what about Washington State? Anything that you can think about in terms of lessons learned?
Jessie Losch:Yeah, I think there's a pragmatism that has to hit at some point when we, as a coalition, have to come to the realization that to move any further, we'd have to compromise things that we're not willing to. And that's a horrible conversation to have to have to say, we're going to stop trying to get anything because what we get would actually be a little bit more detrimental in a way. But I think here's where I am an optimist. I don't think that any conversation with a lawmaker or staffer is wasted. To me, it's like scattering seeds and you never know where those will go because lawmakers move from committee to committee.
Jessie Losch:They move from chamber to chamber. Staffers to me are the most useful, right? If you have a, I said this this week, that if you, you know, normally you have a conversation with a staffer who looks like they are 19 years old, and they blush when you say the word sperm and you think like, am I wasting- We're wasting everybody's time here. But you never know because there's so much turnover where that staffer is going to wind up, whether their next boss is going to be in charge of the committee that you need, or even whether that staffer is going to run for office themselves.
Jessie Losch:And so anytime you are able to plant a seed that IVF is important, that everybody has a connection, you don't know where that's going to go. So I think that even, you know, there are times when it's so difficult, especially for patient advocates to be so vulnerable and constantly share their stories. And I think hopefully the lesson learned is for every meet that you have, you are sending that person out into the legislative sphere and they're going to carry your story with them.
Barb Collura:Well said, Jesse. So important. I love how you just said sprinkle seeds, and I just could visualize that happening. It's so important. State advocacy, you know, I always am amazed at the volume of legislation that comes across the desk in a particular state, and multiply that times fifty.
Barb Collura:It is a mountain of bills. And the areas of expertise that these staffers and lawmakers have to have, which they don't have. They count on us, they count on other advocates to educate them. So we have to keep showing up, we have to keep putting our issues in front of them, and we have to keep moving this forward. But I do agree that we get to a point perhaps in some places where if it's going to be too diminished, you know, do we continue to go forward? And I think we learn lessons every year.
Barb Collura:So I just I want to thank you both. We still have a lot of state advocacy left. I know some states are closing up soon. States like California stay open a little bit longer.
Barb Collura:And May is a really busy month in a lot of state legislatures. New York, I know they get all their budget stuff done. So I think that we still have some life left in us In this in this session, I also want to give a big shout out to Joyce Reinecke and the Alliance for Fertility Preservation, who spearheads all the fertility preservation insurance mandates. Her organization has been at this for a really long time. And there's so many cancer organizations that are part of our coalition that work in this area. So Joyce, thank you for all you're doing. And I know you still have some life left going on in a few states.
Barb Collura:So I just want to thank our listeners. But before we jump off, Alise and Jesse, any last words for this year or for this season as we are still at it in many states?
Jessie Losch:Yes. Alise, can you plug- I know we're state focused here, I usually am, but can we do a quick plug for Federal Advocacy Day?
Barb Collura:Do it. Do it. Do it.
Jessie Losch:Go, Alise, go.
Alise Powell:Sure. Happy to. I was hoping that we get a chance to. Everyone, please, if you're listening, make sure you're signed up for our RESOLVE and ASRM's Federal Advocacy Day. It's on May 20. It's virtual. It's super easy to do from home. Sign up, share your stories, tell your lawmakers why access to infertility insurance coverage matters to you.
Barb Collura:Fantastic. Yay. It's free. We provide training May 20, virtual. Go to resolve.org and register. We do Federal Advocacy Day in partnership with ASRM, so all are welcome.
Barb Collura:Well, with that, we're going to wrap another episode of Infertility Discourse. We will put in the show notes links to our state legislation tracking on our website. And we also have a state toolkit. I know that ASRM has an advocacy toolkit as well.
Barb Collura:And we can link to that. So people, if you're saying, gosh, how do I get involved? Who are these amazing people on the ground doing work? We'd love for you to get involved. So with that, thank you so much.
Barb Collura:Bye bye.