Donald Trump's IVF Promise

you can reach the latest episode of pic watch anytime just ask your smart speaker play the opinion pic watch podcast from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal this is pic watch welcome back let's listen to the clip that bill mentions this is Donald Trump announcing on Thursday that he supports federally funded or mandated at least IVF for everyone who wants it as you know I was always for IVF right from the beginning as soon as we heard about it it's fertilization and it's helping women and men and families uh but it's helping women able to have a baby some have great difficulty and a lot of them have been very happy with the results as you know and what we're doing and we're doing this because we just think it's great and we need great children beautiful children in our country we actually need them and we are going to be uh under the Trump Administration we are going to be paying for that treatment so we are paying for that treatment all Americans who want it all all Americans that get it all Americans that need it so we're going to be paying for that treatment uh or we're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay Kate what do you make of this I understand what Trump is trying to do politically because KLA Harris and Tim Walls have been saying things at the Democratic National Convention including in this CN interview that Trump is just raring to install some kind of national abortion ban he wants to take away contraceptives none of which is in Trump's platform and all of which he seems to be running away from on the other hand it seems to me there would be a way to make his position clear and to call out those falsehoods about his intentions without proposing some kind of new Nationwide entitlement without any sort of explanation of what is going to cost who's going to pay for it how this is going to work through the insurance system if it's going to be mandated can only imagine that if that's mandated through insurance that that means other people's premiums are going to go up right I mean you're you're reading this right as essentially just a political stop to try to blunt his liabilities on abortion with Women Voters but it is ironic I think that you have Trump basically calling for an expansion of the Affordable Care Act Obamacare which dictated what benefits insurers had to offer and basically using suggesting using that same system uh to force insurers to cover ibf now ibf is very expensive for couples who want it is sometimes covered by insurance it's sometimes not you do have more large employers that are starting to offer it as Americans form families at later ages and as more workers want it but that said what Trump is talking about doing here is either mandating it in some sense where you know if your Affordable Care Act plan has to cover it or Medicaid has to cover it it would be a huge expansion of government that run into tens of billions of dollars it would drive up premiums for other people and to Bill's earlier point it would just be gasoline on America's culture wars at this point most Americans support IVF being available but looking at a poll earlier this summer 82% of Americans said IVF was morally acceptable but only 49% approved of the destruction of leftover embryos created in the process that's the objection bill was describing and I think the idea that Trump is going to create a new federal mandate and command the consciences people who disagree it's terrible on the fiscal merits and further cultural damage Bill we give you the last word here but I take your point that these moves by Trump are unlikely to attract any pro-choicers to his side while potentially alienating pro-life voters but I guess I read him as going for the people in the middle who have these mixed feelings on these questions but are suspicious of Donald Trump particularly with JD Vance at his side I take him to trying to give them some comfort more than trying to convert anybody who's really in KLA Harris's camp on this yeah that's a good point I would just say he's failing at it the way to appeal to people in the middle what the referenda on abortion should have shown us is that candidates that have a position can explain it well do okay but candidates a flounder like I mean it looks like he blurted these things out without running them by anyone I've talked to a number of pro-life leaders and there are a lot that are very distressed you can't appeal to middle while burning part of your base and meanwhile I think as I said before there's a very good explanation he can have on for the states making these decisions not the federal government Kate mentioned the federal involvement in the IVF decision and in Florida I think probably the line should not be drawn in 6 weeks but I would codify row which is basically unlimited so I think he has good appeal to say to people we're not going to pay for this we want the decision back in the hands of the American people if you want all these things in your state persuade your fellow citizen instead he's flopping around all over the place blurting out what he would offer and I think Kate's right he's inflaming the culture war and he's really alienating a lot of pro lifers that went to bat firm by signaling I can take you for granted thank you Bill and Kate thank you all for listening you can email us at pwp podcast wsj.com if you like the show please hit that subscribe button we'll be back next week with another edition of pomac Watch [Music]