Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez revealed in a series of intimate social media posts this week that she is part of a growing cohort of young professionals who are choosing to freeze their eggs to increase their chances of having a child at an older age. She also illuminated what for many women is a deal-breaking hurdle: Her insurance doesn’t cover the thousands of dollars it will cost.
“I saved a long time for this, so I’m just paying for it outright,” Ocasio-Cortez, 36, said in one post on her Instagram story. “But there are clinics that offer a payment plan.”
Insurance coverage for egg freezing is still spotty, despite its growing popularity as more people opt to have their first child later in life, according to fertility industry experts. A first-of-its kind bill in the state Legislature would expand those benefits to more New Yorkers. It so far has passed the state Senate twice, but has made little progress in the Assembly.
“Being able to control your future and your destiny, when and how you’re able to have kids and a family, is something that should be available to everyone,” said state Sen. Michelle Hinchey, a Democrat representing the Catskills and Hudson Valley, who introduced the bill in the Senate.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine stopped labeling egg freezing as an “experimental” procedure in 2012, after the organization reviewed the available research at the time on its safety and effectiveness. The procedure’s popularity has exploded since then. In 2024, nearly 40,000 egg-freezing cycles were reported nationwide, up from about 6,000 a decade earlier, according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.
Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, said she expects to pay $8,000 to $9,000 for her egg-freezing process, which includes consulting with a clinic, injecting herself over the course of two weeks with a series of medications that stimulate egg production, having the eggs extracted and then storing them for later.
But some NYC clinics place the cost at $10,000 to $20,000 — and patients may require multiple cycles to retrieve the desired number of eggs, multiplying the costs.
While large employers in competitive industries like tech and finance are increasingly offering egg-freezing benefits to attract employees, many companies still don’t cover the procedure, said Adam Okun, the president of employee benefits at Epic, an insurance brokerage and consulting firm.
Meanwhile, state laws around coverage for egg-freezing are limited in scope. New York is currently one of more than 20 states across the country that require certain health plans to cover egg freezing if medical procedures like chemotherapy for cancer treatment are likely to affect a patient’s fertility.
Hinchey’s bill (S4497/A7339), introduced in 2025, would expand that mandate to cover elective egg freezing as well. It would be the first of its kind in the country, according to the nonprofit Resolve, which advocates increasing access to egg freezing and IVF.
Hinchey, who was elected at 32 and is now 38, said that, as with AOC, the issue is personal. She said she discussed freezing her eggs with her husband but they decided against it.
“It was the same time that we were planning for our wedding and it was just financially impossible and we weren’t able to do it,” said Hinchey, who does not have children.
Hinchey said there are competing healthcare priorities in the state Legislature, but she hopes that more people speaking out about their experiences like Ocasio-Cortez will help bring her bill to the fore.
But Leslie Moran, a spokesperson for the state Health Plan Association, which represents insurers, said the new insurance mandate could increase the cost of coverage for everyone.
“At a time when health care costs are a key concern for consumers and employers, the cost of new or expanded coverage mandates must be balanced with the goal of preserving affordability for New Yorkers,” Moran said.
She added that New York already “mandates broad coverage of fertility treatments,” including medically necessary fertility preservation services.
In the meantime, some are getting creative with how they afford to freeze their eggs.
A company called Cofertility, launched in 2022, offers to freeze eggs for free for patients between the ages of 21 and 33, if they agree to donate half of the eggs retrieved to others in need, such as a same-sex couple.
Cofertility said about 200,000 people nationwide have applied to be donors so far, about 12,000 of whom were based in New York — making it the state with the second most interest in the program nationwide.
Meanwhile, some New Yorkers are seeking to cut costs by sourcing fertility medications used in egg freezing from other patients online.
In an extremely active Facebook group called IVF Garage Sale with 31,000 members from all over the country, people post abbreviations of medications they have extra doses of or are looking for, often paired with their location. “NYC (Manhattan) pickup only,” one recent post reads.
But Dr. Jamie Grifo, the program director of the NYU Langone Fertility Center, said sourcing medication online comes with risks, noting that the medication may not have been stored at the right temperature or may be past its expiration date, which can make it ineffective.
“You don’t want to be cutting corners on a cycle that costs so much,” Grifo said. “You won’t know the outcome for years, and you can’t go back.”
In her Instagram posts, Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t shied away from the challenges of egg freezing, talking candidly not just about the cost, but also the physical effects.
She said she had to stop working out after day three, her stomach started to look like a “pincushion” from all the shots and she was dealing with bloating as her belly entered “her pufferella era.”
But despite all this, she has painted the experience as an empowering one that shows what women are capable of. At one point, she showed herself injecting medication in the ABC greenroom before a TV interview, saying, “I think it’s bada–.”