For a growing number of young people faced with a cancer diagnosis, one agonizing choice needs to be made quickly: Save your fertility, or hold on to those thousands of dollars — if you even have them — for treatment or whatever else life may bring.

Fertility loss is often a guaranteed side effect of chemotherapy, radiation, some surgeries, and even some targeted therapies. But egg-freezing, sperm-freezing, and IVF are generally considered "elective" procedures that you can choose to do, but don't need. So insurance coverage is rare.

As of today, 19 US states and DC mandate insurance coverage for medically induced infertility, though some, like Kentucky and Montana, only cover the first step (freezing) and not IVF.

That means that where a cancer patient lives can radically affect the co

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