The High Cost of Assisted Reproduction
This chapter explores how cost as a barrier to ART access is more complex than just the high price of medical goods and services transacted in the pursuit of parenthood. Reportedly, assisted reproduction generates annual revenues of over $4 billion in the United States, much of it paid out-of-pocket by patients who are underinsured for this aspect of health care. At first blush, it is clear that the synergy between high-priced treatments and low levels of reimbursement produces a world of stratified reproduction in which wealth status determines entry into the procreative marketplace. A deeper analysis does not refute this impression, but also reveals that socioeconomics alone do not fully explain how ART funding works to suppress reproduction by certain “lower resource” individuals.