{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.murray.senate.gov/senator-murray-responds-to-speaker-johnson-working-to-strip-ivf-coverage-for-servicemembers-from-ndaa-betraying-trump-promise-to-increase-access-to-ivf/", "Senator Murray Responds to Speaker Johnson Working to Strip IVF Coverage for Servicemembers from NDAA, Betraying Trump Promise to Increase Access to IVF", "2025-12-04", "2025", "2025-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "WA", "Patty Murray", "M001111", "www.murray.senate.gov", "murray", "https://www.murray.senate.gov/category/press-releases/", "scraper", "The NDAA provision is based on legislation Senator Murray helped introduce in April; Murray has worked for decades to make IVF more accessible for veterans and servicemembers, leads legislation to help veterans grow their families\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement in response to reporting in MS NOW that House Speaker Mike Johnson is working behind the scenes to strip a provision\u2014based on legislation Senator Murray helped introduce earlier this year\u2014 that would mandate TRICARE health care coverage for fertility services, including in vitro fertilization (IVF), for all active-duty servicemembers.\n\n\u201cRight now, servicemembers who risk their lives for our country can\u2019t get the same IVF coverage that\u2019s available to other federal employees\u2014that\u2019s plain wrong, and it\u2019s outrageous that once again, Speaker Johnson and his anti-abortion allies are standing in the way of a simple legislative fix. Members of the military face a higher rate of infertility often because of their service to our country, but Republicans want to deny these servicemembers the ability to grow their families.\n\n\u201cSpeaker Johnson is among the most extreme anti-abortion radicals in Congress who believes embryos should have the same rights as living, breathing human beings\u2014it\u2019s disgraceful but not surprising that he is working behind the scenes to force servicemembers to suffer through infertility rather than grow their families through IVF.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll keep pushing to protect every servicemember\u2019s right to IVF\u2014and Donald Trump, who purports to support IVF, should join with Democrats to protect this provision.\u201d\n\nIn April, Senator Murray joined Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) in introducing the IVF for Military Families Act, new bicameral legislation that would require TRICARE\u2014which provides health coverage to active duty military servicemembers, retirees, and their families\u2014to cover fertility services, including IVF, for servicemembers and their families. The Senate-passed NDAA included a provision that mirrors the IVF for Military Families Act\u2014Speaker Johnson is reportedly working to remove that provision from the final NDAA legislation.\n\nAs the daughter of a disabled World War II veteran, Senator Murray knows firsthand the sacrifice that military service demands and has been fighting for over a decade to expand access to IVF care and other fertility services for veterans and servicemembers, and to protect servicemembers\u2019 and veterans\u2019 access to the reproductive care they deserve. She has introduced multiple pieces of legislation to address the challenges veterans face when starting a family after their service, and in 2012, Senator Murray secured Senate passage of a provision to end the ban on IVF services at VA.\n\nSenator Murray has helped lead the charge in the Senate to protect IVF from Republican attacks for the millions of Americans\u2014including servicemembers and veterans\u2014who rely on it to grow their families. Last Congress, Murray introduced the Right to IVF Act in the Senate\u2014which would establish a nationwide right to IVF and other assisted reproductive technology (ART) and lower the costs of IVF treatment for middle-class families, and includes the Veteran Families Health Services Act. Despite many Republicans publicly claiming to support IVF, nearly every Senate Republican voted against the Right to IVF Act on two separate occasions last year. Overall, Republicans blocked legislation that would protect IVF nationwide three separate times last year.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.murray.senate.gov/senator-murray-responds-to-speaker-johnson-working-to-strip-ivf-coverage-for-servicemembers-from-ndaa-betraying-trump-promise-to-increase-access-to-ivf/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8075879886746407, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}