Portantino Supports Fertility Protection for Cancer Patients

Assemblymember Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) has introduced legislation that will provide cancer patients, as well as others fighting diseases through aggressive treatments, the options to protect their fertility. 

Requesting that health insurers provide fertility options to preserve eggs and sperm of patients, AB 428 seeks to ease the burden and dilemmas often associated with the choice patients face between life-saving treatments and future reproductive abilities.

While most insurers cover cancer treatments and resulting procedures such as reconstructive surgery, the ability to preserve reproductive ability, often lost as a result of chemotherapy, is not currently an option, Portantino noted. Many times, patients delay treatment or chose less-effective courses of care in order to preserve their ability to have children. 

A father of two daughters, Portantino is connected to the emotions of the bill, but also it’s fiscal advantages. 

“Our hope is that folks will see the logic behind it and the human side behind it, as well as the practical side,” he said during a phone interview Thursday.

“People send us to do our job, and to have a recognition of the fiscal health of the economy, but also to solve problems that need to be solved," he said. “This is a relatively small issue but an important issue."

Not only is this not beneficial to the patient, but according Portantino's press release, “economic models showing delay in treatment increases the cost to insurance providers” as patients “become sicker and require more medical procedures.”

Sean Tipton, director of public affairs for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said Thursday that the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization fully backs Portantino’s bill, which, Tipton said, would allow patients to focus solely on the best medical treatment for their condition.

“It’s only right that health insurance plans completely cover the treatment of people, and that includes medical treatments to restore fertility, when that fertility has been impaired [by the medical procedure],’’ Tipton said.

The bill is now set to work its way through Sacramento and Portantino is hopeful that it will be signed into law. If passed, AB 428 would go into effect January 1, 2012, providing up to 140,00 patients a year the ability to receive necessary care.