This IVF baby cost $70,000. Is that cost justified? I’m going to say yes.

….forklift driver Theona Zogopoulos, endured 10 cycles of IVF at a personal cost of $30,000.

Taxpayers
chipped in the rest via the Medicare safety net scheme, making the
long-held dream of parenthood a reality for Ms Zogopoulos and her
council worker husband, Chris. "I call her my little miracle on ice," the besotted mother says. "She was on ice for 18 months."

But
without the 80 per cent rebate on the IVF procedure — the family also
had other medical expenses — it's doubtful the Zogopouloses, who took
out a $20,000 bank loan to cover their costs, would have been able to
afford so many IVF cycles.

The issue of tampering with public funding for fertility services is
politically fraught, as the previous Howard government discovered,
because the area of assisted reproduction is emotionally charged and
access to IVF is now widely accepted as a right in Australia. It is a
right that is increasingly expensive: the safety net scheme, which has
leapt 28 per cent since 2007, now costs $319 million a year, 44 per
cent of it IVF and obstetric services.

How much taxpayers should subsidise assisted reproduction, and whether it should be means tested, remains controversial. When
the Howard government tried to rein in the public cost in 2005 by
limiting funding to three cycles a year for women up to the age of 42,
or three in total for older women, it was a disaster.

But with
Labor's economic strategists now considering ways to pare back the
safety net scheme, the IVF industry fears rebates on fertility and
obstetric services are again at risk. Options being considered by
the Government are believed to include capping the number of (now
unlimited) publicly funded cycles available, means testing, and
restricting access on the basis of age.

Dear Mia,

I am a married, 42 year old, future mother (I hope) who reads your weekend column regularly. The reason for this email is to see if you would write about what it would mean if the government decides to eliminate the coverage of IVF from Medicare and/or not allow the Medicare Safety Net to apply to IVF treatments.  These issues are on the table now, and have been written about here:  – these contain links to the relevant articles and more facts about the issue in general.

This issue is so important to so many, and I think is not really understood by those who haven’t had fertility issues themselves or been close friends or relatives with someone who shared their IVF journey – it’s a very personal issue to most.  For me, I feel kicked in the stomach whenever I read something like “IVF shouldn’t be covered for women over 40”.  I could not agree more that waiting until your 40 to try to get pregnant is not ideal – and if you ask any woman over 40, they will tell you that they wish that their life had worked out so that they were trying when they were in their 30’s.  But life doesn’t always work out in accordance with the ideal plan. 

I am trying at 40+ because I didn’t meet my partner until I was 36, going on 37 – and that was meet – it was a long courtship period due to the fact that we lived in different countries, and before having one of us uproot their entire life and leave their family, we wanted to make sure our relationship was right.  Do I wish I had found the right person earlier? Absolutely – but I did not.  While I was waiting, I worked – worked very hard, as did my husband, and we are fortunate to be successful. 

Did we pick a career over family, thinking only of success and money? Absolutely not.  But while waiting for the right person, we forged ahead in our separate careers.  And during this time, we paid taxes – some might say an obscene amount of taxes. We have never been and will never be eligible for any government assistance program – no baby bonus, no family tax benefit, etc. 

I haven’t begrudged this – there are people who need this help.  However, now the government may take away the one thing we are currently eligible – Medicare assistance with IVF.  This is unfair.  We each could have had children with the wrong person earlier on – divorcing and having single parent families, relying much more on government assistance.  We did not take this path and have no regrets about not taking it.  I want to have at least one child with my husband; I want to give my parents and his parents a grandchild; I want to be a mother and experience the joys, excitement, frustrations, sadness and all of the other wonderful things you write about each week. Please write about this…….thank you….JB

,