Maybe, just maybe it shouldn’t cost close to 10k to even TRY to have a kid through IVF? More like 15k out of pocket costs till the Medicare rebate anyway.
1 in 6 aussie couples will struggle with infertility whilst 1 in 20 kids is born of IVF. https://monashivf.com/one-in-six/
1 in 6 couples. 1 in 20 babies. You can see a fair gap here. Unless your comfortably “middle class”, you screwed. yes there are some public clinics with no gap, but the wait times are staggering. If we’re worried about falling birth rates FULLY funding IVF and fertility treatments through Medicare is a no brainer.
I’m late to this conversation but I’ve gone 5 rounds of IVF and it’s cost us most of our savings. IVF didn’t work for us and we’re looking at egg donors. Did you know it’s illegal to pay someone or receive money for being a surrogate or egg donor? We’re having to look overseas because hardly anyone here will do it for free (understandably).
Clearly, the government isn’t interested in anything remotely related to female health.
@Peddlephile We had a costly and convoluted IVF journey, so big hugs.
But it’s not just female health! It’s human health. It meant just as much to me as a ‘man’ as it did to my wife. It’s so strange to make it a female thing.
Thank you so much. I hope you and your wife’s IVF journey was more successful than mine.
Agree - human health. I guess I was thinking about my surgery costs for endometriosis on top of IVF and how it wasn’t covered by Medicare at all. Medicare coverage has huge gaps and I hate how the government whittles away at it rather than expanding it.