Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., arrives to the U.S. Capitol for the final votes of the week on Friday, Might 15, 2026.
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When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just lately introduced on social media that she was freezing her eggs, she referred to as consideration to the price of the process. The choice had taken time, the Democratic consultant for New York’s 14th congressional district stated in an Instagram story, “to contemplate, weigh and save up for.”
So-called elective egg freezing has change into extra widespread as ladies delay motherhood to deal with their schooling and careers, research present. Ocasio-Cortez, who’s 36, just lately stated on ABC’s “This Week” that she hasn’t dominated out a future presidential and U.S. Senate marketing campaign.
Nonetheless, the expense of egg freezing — compounded by a widespread lack of insurance coverage protection — stays an impediment for a lot of ladies.
“A single egg freezing cycle in the US sometimes prices $10,000 to $20,000,” stated Dr. Stephanie Kuku, a former gynecologist and senior adviser to the World Well being Group. The overall tab could be a lot greater if a number of cycles are wanted, and after factoring in extra prices comparable to storage and implantation.
Kuku, who additionally has labored with a number of tech corporations on initiatives associated to IVF accessibility, has discovered in her new analysis that lowering fertility therapy prices will increase start charges.
For comparability, in France, elective egg freezing is absolutely lined by the nation’s public medical health insurance.
Egg freezing is framed principally as a expertise that offers ladies “extra reproductive selection,” stated Natalie Lampert, the writer of “The Huge Freeze.”
“However that selection continues to be disproportionately obtainable to individuals who can afford it or have good fertility advantages,” Lampert stated.
Ocasio-Cortez didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Egg freezing prices can hit $47,000
A single egg freezing cycle, together with hormone stimulation and the retrieval process, prices round $16,000, on common, based on FertilityIQ, a fertility information and schooling platform. The value varies considerably by location.
However many ladies must bear a number of cycles to get their desired egg depend, stated Dr. Marcelle Cedars, a professor and director on the College of California, San Francisco’s Heart for Reproductive Well being. Ideally, ladies beneath the age of 35 will freeze not less than 20 eggs, Cedars stated. Ladies over that age sometimes want a better quantity.
The overall egg-freezing prices for a 38-year-old girl in New York Metropolis who wants three cycles can attain $47,000, based on a FertilityIQ evaluation.
It isn’t simply age that impacts the required cycle quantity. The affected person’s total well being and the power’s strategies are additionally elements.
“For folks with out insurance coverage protection, that mixture of upfront price and uncertainty could make the choice particularly troublesome,” stated Danielle Melfi, CEO of RESOLVE: The Nationwide Infertility and Household Constructing Affiliation.
Well being protection of egg freezing will not be widespread
“My insurance coverage doesn’t cowl one penny of this,” Ocasio-Cortez stated on social media about her egg freezing process.
Certainly, medical health insurance protection for elective egg freezing continues to be the exception somewhat than the rule, Melfi stated. Although she added: “The place we’re seeing significant development is thru office advantages.”
Round 22% of employers with 500 or extra employees offered protection for elective egg freezing in 2025, up from 5% in 2015, based on Mercer. Amongst corporations with over 5,000 workers, 40% provided the profit final yr, in contrast with solely 8% a decade earlier.
Even amongst corporations that cowl egg freezing, a most lifetime good thing about round $20,000 is widespread, Mercer discovered.
Those that aren’t eligible for a office medical health insurance plan will normally need to pay for your entire process out of pocket, Melfi stated.
The Reasonably priced Care Act market “doesn’t set up a federal requirement for plans to cowl IVF or elective egg freezing,” she stated. And no states cowl elective egg freezing for these on Medicaid.
There’s one exception: Greater than a dozen states mandate fertility preservation protection earlier than sure medical remedies, comparable to chemotherapy, that may impression the physique’s skill to make sperm or eggs, Melfi stated. However even this safety would not attain all plans, she added.
Storage, taxes and implantation up the tab
After the egg extraction process, ladies sometimes need to pay an ongoing price to retailer their eggs, stated doctor and authorized monetary planner Carolyn McClanahan, founding father of Life Planning Companions in Jacksonville, Florida.
These prices additionally fluctuate by location. 5 years of storage in New York Metropolis, for instance, can price $5,500, FertiltyIQ discovered.
“And naturally, in the event that they determine to make use of the eggs, they will need to pay the prices to thaw after which implant the eggs,” stated McClanahan, a member of the CNBC Monetary Advisor Council. “That, after all, prices quite a bit.”
Consequently, most {couples} attempt to conceive naturally earlier than turning to frozen eggs or embryos, she stated. Medical insurance protection for IVF is extra widespread when it is resulting from infertility than private selection.
Those that determine to freeze their eggs even have to contemplate taxes, McClanahan stated.
If your organization pays for elective egg freezing, that profit quantity “would depend as earned earnings and be taxed,” she stated. In such circumstances, your employer will doubtless add the profit to your W-2.
That might generate a big tax invoice. For a $20,000 profit quantity, a single girl incomes $80,000 a yr would owe an additional $4,400 to the IRS, based on an instance offered by McClanahan.
In case you freeze your eggs resulting from a medical situation, the charges could qualify for the medical expense deduction, McClanahan stated.
“If a lady is identified with most cancers and the therapy goes to have an effect on her future fertility, it could be a deductible expense,” she stated. “Freezing eggs since you need to delay childbirth is taken into account a private selection and is not deductible.”
