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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Trump dubbed himself the ‘father of IVF' on the campaign trail. But his pledge to mandate insurance cover has disappeared
Donald Trump's vow to expand in vitro fertilization (IVF) access to millions of Americans is on hold, with White House officials backing away from plans to require Obamacare health plans to include the service as an essential health benefit, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. The Post reported that White House officials have privately moved away from the prospect of pushing for legislation to address the issue despite it being one of Trump's signature campaign promises, citing two persons with knowledge of internal discussions in Trumpworld. A senior administration official also acknowledged to the newspaper that changing Obamacare to force insurers to cover new services would require congressional action, not an executive order. The president has governed largely by executive fiat in his second term as he grapples with a closely-divded Congress and an unruly GOP majority in the House of Representatives. He's used those executive orders to dismantle whole parts of the federal government, including USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The president even tried to take an axe to the Department of Education, though that battle is still being waged in the courts. The Supreme Court recently cleared the way for Trump to cut roughly a quarter of the agency's staff. But many of Trump's campaign promises lie outside of his ability to influence via the hiring or firing of people and redirection of agency resources or agendas. In 2024, he laid out no direct path for his goal to expand IVF access, only telling voters that insurance companies would be forced to cover it. Still, he proclaimed himself the 'father of IVF' at at Fox News town hall, and promised during an NBC News interview: 'We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment. We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.' At the time, there was little to no acknowledgment of the fact that many if not most conservatives still oppose the Affordable Care Act and the same healthcare exchanges which Trump was now promising to utilize as he sought to use the power of the federal government to expand healthcare coverage. Now, with the passage of Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' without any provisions expanding IVF access, and with the prospect of further policy gains before the midterms growing dimmer, it's unclear when the White House would have another chance to press the issue in Congress. In February, the president signed an executive order directing his advisers to 'submit to the President a list of policy recommendations on protecting IVF access and aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs for IVF treatment.' It's been crickets on the issue since then. In 2024, many of Trump's critics and the media pointed out that the policy would essentially amount to a reversal or at the very least coming in sharp contrast to the first Trump administration's efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which ended in failure, and a contradiction of the conservative view that government should not exercise that level of control over Americans' health care decisions. The president's promise thrilled his party's natalists, embodied by Vice President JD Vance and an army of right-wing immigration hawks who fear the changing American demographics brought on as a result of falling birth rates and high levels of migration. It also wowed some of his Democratic and left-leaning critics, who see the policy as a means of furthering their goal of expanding access to healthcare for poorer Americans. For Vance, the issue of declining U.S. birth rates predates his MAGA heel-turn. In 2019, he told a gathering of conservatives in Washington: 'Our people aren't having enough children to replace themselves. That should bother us.' 'We want babies not just because they are economically useful. We want more babies because children are good. And we believe children are good, because we are not sociopaths,' the future vice president added at the time. Two years later, he'd tell a right-leaning podcast: 'I think we have to go to war against the anti-child ideology that exists in our country.' During the 2024 campaign, those views emerged again as Vance attacked Democrats as 'childless cat ladies' and leaned heavily into attacking the left for supposedly being anti-family. Progressives fought back, pointing to efforts to expand the child tax credit and other benefits that aid young families under Joe Biden and other Democratic administrations, including the passage of Barack Obama's signature law: the Affordable Care Act.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
I'm a relationships expert: these are the commonly missed signs that your female friends are TOXIC (and how to cut them off)
I have gone through more friendship break-ups than I care to admit and, controversially, I believe that makes me a better friend. It might even keep me younger too. A study last week revealed that toxic friendships cause premature biological ageing, comparable to that triggered by smoking. New York University found that social exchanges with so-called frenemies can cause chemical changes to DNA by keeping the body in a state of high stress.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Using Generative AI for therapy might feel like a lifeline – but there's danger in seeking certainty in a chatbot
Tran* sat across from me, phone in hand, scrolling. 'I just wanted to make sure I didn't say the wrong thing,' he explained, referring to a recent disagreement with his partner. 'So I asked ChatGPT what I should say.' He read the chatbot-generated message aloud. It was articulate, logical and composed – almost too composed. It didn't sound like Tran. And it definitely didn't sound like someone in the middle of a complex, emotional conversation about the future of a long-term relationship. It also did not mention anywhere some of Tran's contributing behaviours to the relationship strain that Tran and I had been discussing. Like many others I've seen in therapy recently, Tran had turned to AI in a moment of crisis. Under immense pressure at work and facing uncertainty in his relationship, he'd downloaded ChatGPT on his phone 'just to try it out'. What began as a curiosity soon became a daily habit, asking questions, drafting texts, and even seeking reassurance about his own feelings. The more Tran used it, the more he began to second-guess himself in social situations, turning to the model for guidance before responding to colleagues or loved ones. He felt strangely comforted, like 'no one knew me better'. His partner, on the other hand, began to feel like she was talking to someone else entirely. ChatGPT and other generative AI models present a tempting accessory, or even alternative, to traditional therapy. They're often free, available 24/7 and can offer customised, detailed responses in real time. When you're overwhelmed, sleepless and desperate to make sense of a messy situation, typing a few sentences into a chatbot and getting back what feels like sage advice can be very appealing. But as a psychologist, I'm growing increasingly concerned about what I'm seeing in the clinic; a silent shift in how people are processing distress and a growing reliance on artificial intelligence in place of human connection and therapeutic support. AI might feel like a lifeline when services are overstretched – and make no mistake, services are overstretched. Globally, in 2019 one in eight people were living with a mental illness and we face a dire shortage of trained mental health professionals. In Australia, there has been a growing mental health workforce shortage that is impacting access to trained professionals. Clinician time is one of the scarcest resources in healthcare. It's understandable (even expected) that people are looking for alternatives. Turning to a chatbot for emotional support isn't without risk however, especially when the lines between advice, reassurance and emotional dependence become blurred. Many psychologists, myself included, now encourage clients to build boundaries around their use of ChatGPT and similar tools. Its seductive 'always-on' availability and friendly tone can unintentionally reinforce unhelpful behaviours, especially for people with anxiety, OCD or trauma-related issues. Reassurance-seeking, for example, is a key feature in OCD and ChatGPT, by design, provides reassurance in abundance. It never asks why you're asking again. It never challenges avoidance. It never says, 'let's sit with this feeling for a moment, and practice the skills we have been working on'. Tran often reworded prompts until the model gave him an answer that 'felt right'. But this constant tailoring meant he wasn't just seeking clarity; he was outsourcing emotional processing. Instead of learning to tolerate distress or explore nuance, he sought AI-generated certainty. Over time, that made it harder for him to trust his own instincts. Beyond psychological concerns, there are real ethical issues. Information shared with ChatGPT isn't protected by the same confidentiality standards as registered Ahpra professionals. Although OpenAI states that data from users is not used to train its models unless permission is given, the sheer volume of fine print in user agreements often goes unread. Users may not realise how their inputs can be stored, analysed and potentially reused. There's also the risk of harmful or false information. These large language models are autoregressive; they predict the next word based on previous patterns. This probabilistic process can lead to 'hallucinations', confident, polished answers that are completely untrue. AI also reflects the biases embedded in its training data. Research shows that generative models can perpetuate and even amplify gender, racial and disability-based stereotypes – not intentionally, but unavoidably. Human therapists also possess clinical skills; we notice when a client's voice trembles, or when their silence might say more than words. This isn't to say AI can't have a place. Like many technological advancements before it, generative AI is here to stay. It may offer useful summaries, psycho-educational content or even support in regions where access to mental health professionals is severely limited. But it must be used carefully, and never as a replacement for relational, regulated care. Tran wasn't wrong to seek help. His instincts to make sense of distress and to communicate more thoughtfully were logical. However, leaning so heavily on to AI meant that his skill development suffered. His partner began noticing a strange detachment in his messages. 'It just didn't sound like you', she later told him. It turned out: it wasn't. She also became frustrated about the lack of accountability in his correspondence to her and this caused more relational friction and communication issues between them. As Tran and I worked together in therapy, we explored what led him to seek certainty in a chatbot. We unpacked his fears of disappointing others, his discomfort with emotional conflict and his belief that perfect words might prevent pain. Over time, he began writing his own responses, sometimes messy, sometimes unsure, but authentically his. Good therapy is relational. It thrives on imperfection, nuance and slow discovery. It involves pattern recognition, accountability and the kind of discomfort that leads to lasting change. A therapist doesn't just answer; they ask and they challenge. They hold space, offer reflection and walk with you, while also offering up an uncomfortable mirror. For Tran, the shift wasn't just about limiting his use of ChatGPT; it was about reclaiming his own voice. In the end, he didn't need a perfect response. He needed to believe that he could navigate life's messiness with curiosity, courage and care – not perfect scripts. Name and identifying details changed to protect client confidentiality Carly Dober is a psychologist living and working in Naarm/Melbourne In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat
